TOMMY  ATKi 

AT  WAR 

AS  TOLD    IN   HIS 
OWN      LETTERS 


TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


"  The  English  soldier  is  the  best 
trained  soldier  in  the  world.  The  Eng- 
lish soldier's  fire  is  ten  thousand  times 
worse  than  hell.  If  we  could  only  beat 
the  English  it  would  be  well  for  us,  but 
I  am  afraid  we  shall  never  be  able  to 
beat  these  English  devils." 
From  a  letter  found  on  a  German  officer. 


TOMMY  ATKINS 
AT  WAR 

AS  TOLD  IN  HIS  OWN  LETTERS 


BY 


JAMES  A.  KILPATRICK 


:  ;.,.■■  ■ 

,        i'   >   >    >    J 

,  1     J     »    '       ' 


J  J         >  o      > 


NEW  YORK 

McBRIDE,  NAST  &  COMPANY 

1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
McBride,  Nast  &  Co. 


•    •  •  < 


Published  November,  191 4 


e^ 


NOTE 

This  little  book  is  the  soldier's  story  of  the 
war,  with  all  his  vivid  and  intimate  impressions 
of  life  on  the  great  battlefields  of  Europe.  It 
is  illustrated  by  passages  from  his  letters,  in 
which  he  describes  not  only  the  grim  realities, 
but  the  chivalry,  humanity  and  exaltation  of 
battle.  For  the  use  of  these  passages  the  author 
is  indebted  to  the  courtesy  and  generosity  of 
the  editors  of  all  the  leading  London  and 
provincial  newspapers,  to  whom  he  gratefully 
acknowledges  his  obligations. 

J.  A.  K. 


298971 


CONTENTS 


I  Off  to  the  Front     .... 

II  Sensations  under  Fire  . 

III  Humor  in  the  Trenches    . 

IV  The  Man  with  the  Bayonet  . 
V  Cavalry   Exploits      .... 

VI  With  the  Highlanders 

VII  The  Intrepid  Irish   .... 

VIII  **A    First-Class    Fighting    Man 

IX  Officers  and  Gentlemen   . 

X  Brothers  in  Arms    .... 

XI  Atkins  and  the  Enemy 

XII  The  War  in  the  Air     . 

XIII  Tommy  and  his  Rations 


9 
i8 

30 

39 
46 

55 
64 

"73 
82 

91 
100 

112 

121 


'  )     )  >    ,  '     '       I      ,  '    '  J    '    '      ' ' 


TOMMY  ATKINS 
AT  WAR 


I 


OFF  TO  THE  FRONT 

*'"J'T  is  my  Royal  and  Imperial  Command 
that  you  concentrate  your  energies,  for 
the  immediate  present  upon  one  single 
purpose,  and  that  is  that  you  address  all  your 
skill  and  all  the  valor  of  my  soldiers  to  ex- 
terminate first  the  treacherous  English  and 
walk  over  General  French's  contemptible  little 
army."  * 

While  this  Imperial  Command  of  the  Kaiser 
was  being  written,  Atkins,  innocent  of  the 
fate  decreed  for  him,  was  well  on  his  way  to 
the  front,  full  of  exuberant  spirits,  and  singing 
as  he  went,  "  It's  a  long  way  to  Tipperary." 
In  his  pocket  was  the  message  from  Lord 
Kitchener   which   Atkins   believes   to   be   the 

*  Extract  from  The  Times  report  of  the  German 
Emperor's  Army  Orders,  dated  Headquarters,  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  August  19th,  1914. 

9 


10        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

whole  duty  of  a  soldier:  "  Be  brave,  be  kind, 
courteous  (but  nothing  more  than  courteous) 
to  women,  and  look  upon  looting  as  a  dis- 
graceful act." 

Troopship  after  troopship  had  crossed  the 
Channel  carrying  Sir  John  French's  little 
army  to  the  Continent,  while  the  boasted 
German  fleet,  impotent  to  menace  the  safety 
of  our  transports,  lay  helpless  —  bottled  up,  to 
quote  Mr.  Asquith's  phrase,  "  in  the  inglorious 
seclusion  of  their  own  ports." 

Never  before  had  a  British  Expeditionary 
Force  been  organized,  equipped  and  despatched 
so  swiftly  for  ser^dce  in  the  field.  The  ener- 
gies of  the  War  Office  had  long  been  applied 
to  the  creation  of  a  small  but  highly  efficient 
striking  force  ready  for  instant  action.  And 
now  the  time  for  action  had  come.  The  force 
was  ready.  From  the  harbors  the  troopships 
steamed  awav,  their  decks  crowded  with 
cheer}^  soldiers,  their  flags  waving  a  proud 
challenge  to  any  disputant  of  Britain's  com- 
mand of  the  sea. 

The  expedition  was  carried  out  as  if  by 
magic.  For  a  few  brief  days  the  nation  en- 
dured with  patience  its  self-imposed  silence. 
In  the  newspapers  were  no  brave  columns  of 
farewell  scenes,  no  exultant  send-off  greetings, 
no  stirring  pictures  of  troopships  passing  out 


OFF  TO  THE  FRONT  ii 

into  the  night.  All  was  silence,  the  silence  of 
a  nation  preparing  for  the  "  iron  sacrifice,"  as 
Kipling  calls  it,  of  a  devastating  war.  Then 
suddenly  the  silence  was  broken,  and  across 
the  Channel  was  flashed  the  news  that  the 
troops  had  been  safely  landed,  and  were  only 
waiting  orders  to  throw  themselves  upon  the 
German  brigands,  who  had  broken  the  sacred 
peace  of  Europe. 

And  so  the  scene  changes  to  France  and 
Belgium.  Tommy  Atkins  is  on  his  way  to 
the  Front.  He  has  already  begun  to  send 
home  some  of  those  gallant  letters  that  throb 
throughout  the  pages  of  this  book.  If  he  felt 
the  absence  of  the  stimulating  send-off,  neces- 
sitated by  official  caution  and  the  exigencies 
of  a  European  war,  he  at  least  had  the  new 
joy  of  a  welcome  on  foreign  soil.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  find  words  with  the  right  quality  in 
them  to  express  the  feelings  aroused  in  our 
men  by  their  reception,  or  the  exquisite  grati- 
tude felt  by  the  Franco-Belgian  people.  They 
welcomed  the  British  troops  as  their  deliverers. 

"  The  first  person  to  meet  us  in  France," 
writes  a  British  officer,  "  was  the  pilot,  and 
the  first  intimation  of  his  presence  was  a  huge 
voice  in  the  darkness,  which  roared  out  '  A 
bas  Guillaume.  Eep,  eep,  'ooray!'"  As 
transport  after  transport  sailed  into  Boulogne, 


12        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

and  regiment  after  regiment  landed,  the  popu- 
lation went  into  ecstasies  of  delight.  Through 
the  narrow  streets  of  the  old  town  the  sol- 
diers marched,  singing,  whistling,  and  cheer- 
ing, with  a  wave  of  their  caps  to  the  women 
and  a  kiss  wafted  to  the  children  (but  not 
only  to  the  children!)  on  the  route.  As  they 
swept  along,  their  happy  faces  and  gallant 
bearing  struck  deep  into  the  emotions  of  the 
spectators.  "  What  brave  fellows,  to  go  into 
battle  laughing !  "  exclaimed  one  old  woman, 
whose  own  sons  had  been  called  to  the  army 
of  the  Republic. 

It  was  strange  to  hear  the  pipes  of  the 
Highlanders  skirl  shrilly  through  old  Bou- 
logne, and  to  catch  the  sound  of  English  voices 
in  the  clarion  notes  of  the  "  Alarseillaise,"  but, 
strangest  of  all  to  French  ears,  to  listen  to 
that  new  battle-cry,  "  Are  we  down-hearted?  " 
followed  by  the  unanswerable  "  No — o — o !  " 
of  every  regiment.  And  then  the  lilt  of  that 
new  marching  song  to  which  Tommy  Atkins 
has  given  immortality :  — 

"IT'S  A  LONG,  LONG  WAY  TO  TIPPERARY"* 

Up  to  mighty  London  came  an  Irishman  one  day; 
As  the  streets  are  paved  with  gold,  sure  ev'ry  one  was 

gay, 

*  Copyright   Chappell  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  41   East  34th  St., 
New  York. 


OFF  TO  THE  FRONT  13 

Singing    songs    of    Piccadilly,    Strand    and    Leicester 

Square, 
Till  Paddy  got  excited,  then  he  shouted  to  them  there: 

CHORUS 

It's  a  long  way  to  Tipperary, 

It's  a  long  way  to  go; 
It's  a  long  way  to  Tipperary, 

To  the  sweetest  girl  I  know ! 
Good-by  Piccadilly, 

Farewell  Leicester  Square. 
It's  a  long,  long  way  to  Tipperary, 

But  my  heart's  right  there ! 
It's  a'  there! 

Paddy  wrote  a  letter  to  his  Irish  Molly  O', 

Saying,  "  Should  you  not  receive  it,  write  and  let  me 

know ! 
If  I  make  mistakes  in  spelling,  Molly  dear,"  said  he, 
"  Remember  it's  the  pen  that's  bad,  don't  lay  the  blame 


on  me." 


(Chorus) 


Molly  wrote  a  neat  reply  to  Irish  Paddy  O', 
Saying,  "  Mike  Maloney  wants  to  marry  me,  and  so 
Leave  the  Strand  and  Piccadilly,  or  you'll  be  to  blame, 
For  love  has  fairly  drove  me  silly  —  hoping  you're  the 
same ! " 

{Chorus) 

It  may  seem  odd  that  the  soldier  should  care 
so  little  for  martial  songs,  or  the  songs  that 
are  ostensibly  written  for  him;  but  that  is  not 
the  fault  of  Tommy  Atkins.  Lyric  poets 
don't  give  him  what  he  calls  "  the  stuff."  He 
doesn't   get  it  even    from   Kipling;   Thomas 


14        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

Hardy's  "  Song  of  the  Soldiers  "  leaves  him 
cold.  He  wants  no  epic  stanzas,  no  heroic 
periods.  What  he  asks  for  is  something  simple 
and  romantic,  something  about  a  girl,  and 
home,  and  the  lights  of  London  —  that  goes 
with  a  swing  in  the  march  and  awakens  tender 
memories  when  the  lilt  of  it  is  wafted  at  night 
along  the  trenches. 

And  so  "  Tipperary "  has  gone  with  the 
troops  into  the  great  European  battlefields,  and 
has  echoed  along  the  white  roads  and  over  the 
green  fields  of  France  and  Belgium. 

On  the  way  to  the  front  the  progress  of  our 
soldiers  was  made  one  long  fete :  it  was  "  roses, 
roses,  all  the  way."  In  a  letter  published  in 
The  Times,  an  artillery  officer  thus  describes 
it: 

'*  As  to  the  reception  we  have  met  with 
moving  across  country  it  has  been  simply  won- 
derful and  most  affecting.  We  travel  entirely 
by  motor  transport,  and  it  has  been  flowers 
all  the  way.  One  long  procession  of  accla- 
mation. By  the  wayside  and  through  the  vil- 
lages, men,  women,  and  children  cheer  us  on 
with  the  greatest  enthusiasm,  and  every  one 
wants  to  give  us  something.  They  strip  the 
flower  gardens,  and  the  cars  look  like  carnival 
carriages.  They  pelt  us  with  fruit,  cigarettes, 
chocolate,   bread  —  anything  and   everything. 


OFF  TO  THE  FRONT  15 

It  is  simply  impossible  to  convey  an  impres- 
sion of  it  all.  Yesterday  my  own  car  had 
to  stop  in  a  town  for  petrol.  In  a  moment 
there  must  have  been  a  couple  of  hundred  peo- 
ple round  clamoring;  autograph  albums  were 
thrust  in  front  of  me;  a  perfect  delirium. 
In  another  town  I  had  to  stop  for  an  hour, 
and  took  the  opportunity  to  do  some  shopping. 
I  wanted  some  motor  goggles,  an  eye-bath, 
some  boracic,  provisions,  etc.  They  would 
not  let  me  pay  for  a  single  thing  —  and  there 
was  lunch  and  drinks  as  well.  The  further 
we  go  the  more  enthusiastic  is  the  greeting. 
What  it  will  be  like  at  the  end  of  the  war  one 
cannot  attempt  to  guess." 

Similar  tributes  to  the  kindness  of  the 
French  and  Belgians  are  given  by  the  men. 
A  private  in  the  Yorkshire  Light  Infantry  — 
the  first  British  regiment  to  go  into  action  in 
this  war  —  tells  of  the  joy  of  the  French  peo- 
ple. "  You  ought  to  have  seen  them,"  he 
writes.  "  They  were  overcome  with  delight, 
and  didn't  half  cheer  us !  The  worst  of  it  was 
we  could  not  understand  their  talking.  When 
we  crossed  the  Franco-Belgian  frontier,  there 
was  a  vast  crowd  of  Belgians  waiting  for  us. 
Our  first  greeting  was  the  big  Union  Jack, 
and  on  the  other  side  was  a  huge  canvas  with 
the  words  *  Welcome  to  our  British  Comrades.' 


i6        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

The  Belgians  would  have  given  us  anything; 
they  even  tore  the  sheets  off  their  beds  for  us 
to  wipe  our  faces  with."  Another  Tommy 
tells  of  the  eager  crowds  turning  out  to  give 
our  troops  "  cigars,  cigarettes,  sweets,  fruits, 
wines,  anything  we  want,"  and  the  girls 
"  linking  their  amis  in  ours,  and  stripping  us 
of  our  badges  and  buttons  as  souvenirs." 

Then  there  is  the  other  side  of  the  picture, 
when  the  first  battles  had  been  fought  and  the 
strategic  retreat  had  begun.  No  praise  could 
be  too  high  for  the  chivalry  and  humanity  of 
our  soldiers  in  these  dark  days.  They  were 
almost  worshiped  by  the  people  wherever  they 
went. 

Some  of  the  earliest  letters  from  the  soldiers 
present  distressing  pictures  of  the  poor,  driven 
refugees,  fleeing  from  their  homes  at  the  ap- 
proach of  the  Germans,  who  carry  ruin  and 
desolation  wherever  they  go.  "It  is  pitiful, 
pitiful,"  says  one  writer;  "you  simply  can't 
hold  back  your  tears."  Others  disclose  our 
sympathetic  soldier-men  sharing  their  rations 
with  the  starving  fugitives  and  carrying  the 
children  on  their  shoulders  so  that  the  weary 
mothers  may  not  fall  by  the  way.  "  Be  in- 
variably courteous,  considerate,  and  kind " 
were  Lord  Kitchener's  words  to  the  Army, 
and  these  qualities  no  less  than  valor  will  al- 


OFF  TO  THE  FRONT  17 

ways  be  linked  with  Tommy  Atkins'  name  in 
the  memories  of  the  French  and  Belgian  peo- 
ple. 

They  will  never  forget  the  happy  spick-and- 
span  soldiers  who  sang  as  they  stepped  ashore 
from  the  troopships  at  Boulogne  and  Havre, 
eager  to  reach  the  fighting  line.  These  men 
have  fought  valiantly,  .desperately,  since  then, 
but  their  spirits  are  as  high  as  ever,  and  their 
songs  still  ring  down  the  depleted  ranks  as  the 
war-stained  regiments  swing  along  from  battle 
to  battle  on  the  dusty  road  to  Victory. 


i8        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


II 

SENSATIONS  UNDER  FIRE 

IT  is  said  of  Sir  John  French  that,  on  his 
own  admission,  he  has  "  never  done  any- 
thing worth  doing  without  having  to 
screw  himself  up  to  it."  There  is  no  hint  here 
of  practical  fear,  which  the  hardened  soldier, 
the  fighting  man,  rarely  experiences;  but  of 
the  moral  and  mental  conflict  which  precedes 
the  assumption  of  sovereign  duties  and  high 
commands.  Every  man  who  goes  into  battle 
has  this  need.  He  requires  the  moral  prepara- 
tion of  knowing  why  he  is  fighting,  and  what 
he  is  fighting  for.  In  the  present  war,  Lord 
Kitchener's  fine  message  to  every  soldier  in 
the  Expeditionary  Force  made  this  screwing- 
up  process  easy.  But  to  men  going  under  fire 
for  the  first  time  some  personal  preparation  is 
also  necessary  to  combat  the  ordinary  physical 
terror  of  the  battlefield. 

Soldiers  are  not  accustomed  to  self-analysis. 
They  are  mainly  men  of  action,  and  are  sup- 


SENSATIONS  UNDER  FIRE        19 

posed  to  lack  the  contemplative  vision.  That 
was  the  old  belief.  This  war,  however,  which 
has  shattered  so  many  accepted  ideas,  has  de- 
stroyed that  conviction  too.  Nothing  is  more 
surprising  than  the  revelation  of  their  feel- 
ings disclosed  in  the  soldiers'  letters.  They 
are  the  most  intimate  of  human  documents. 
Here  and  there  a  hint  is  given  of  the  appre- 
hension with  which  the  men  go  into  action, 
unspoken  fears  of  how  they  will  behave  under 
fire,  the  uncertainty  of  complete  mastery  over 
themselves,  brief  doubts  of  their  ability  to 
stand  up  to  this  new  and  sublime  ordeal  of 
death. 

Rarely,  however,  do  the  men  allow  these  ap- 
prehensions to  depress  or  disturb  them. 
Throughout  the  earliest  letters  from  the  front 
the  one  pervading  desire  was  eagerness  for 
battle  —  a  wild  impatience  to  get  the  first  great 
test  of  their  courage  over,  to  feel  their  feet, 
obtain  command  of  themselves. 

"  We  were  all  eager  for  scalps,"  writes  one 
of  the  Royal  Engineers,  "  and  I  took  the  cap, 
sword,  and  lance  of  a  Uhlan  I  shot  through 
the  chest."  An  artilleryman  says  a  gunner 
in  his  battery  was  "  so  anxious  to  see  the  en- 
emy," that  he  jumped  up  to  look,  and  got 
his  leg  shot  away.  Others  tell  of  the  intense 
curiosity  of  the  young  soldiers  to  see  every- 


20        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


thing  that  is  going  on,  of  their  reckless  neglect 
of  cover,  and  of  the  difficulty  of  holding  them 
back  when  they  see  a  comrade  fall.  "  In 
spite  of  orders,  some  of  my  men  actually 
charged  a  machine  gun,"  an  officer  related. 
After  the  first  baptism  of  fire  any  lingering 
fear  is  dispelled.  "  I  don't  think  we  were  ever 
afraid  at  all,"  says  another  soldier,  "  but  we 
got  into  action  so  quickly  that  we  hadn't  time 
to  think  about  it."  "  Habit  soon  overcomes 
the  first  instinctive  fear,"  writes  a  third,  "  and 
then  the  struggle  is  always  palpitating." 

Of  course,  the  fighting  affects  men  in  differ- 
ent ways.  Some  see  the  ugliness,  the  horror 
of  it  all,  grow  sick  at  the  sight,  and  suffer 
from  nausea.  Others,  seeing  deeper  signifi- 
cance in  this  desolation  of  life,  realize  the 
wickedness  and  waste  of  it ;  as  one  Highlander 
expresses  it:  '*  Being  out  there,  and  seeing 
what  we  see,  makes  us  feel  religious."  But 
the  majority  of  the  men  have  the  instinct  for 
fighting,  quickly  adapt  themselves  to  war  con- 
ditions, and  enter  with  zest  into  the  joy  of 
battle.  These  happy  warriors  are  the  men 
who  laugh,  and  sing,  and  jest  in  the  trenches. 
They  take  a  strangely  intimate  pleasure  in  the 
danger  around  them,  and  when  they  fall  they 
die  like  Mr.  Julian  Smith  of  the  Intelligence 
Department,  declaring  that  they  "  loved   the 


SENSATIONS  UNDER  FIRE       21 


fighting."  All  the  wounded  beg  the  doctors 
and  nurses  to  hurry  up  and  let  them  return  to 
the  front.  "  I  was  enjoying  it  until  I  was 
put  under,"  writes  Lance-Corporal  Leslie,  R.E. 
"  I  must  get  back  and  have  another  go  at 
them,"  says  Private  J.  Roe,  of  the  Manches- 
ters.  And  so  on,  letter  after  letter  expressing 
impatience  to  get  into  the  firing  line. 

The  artillery  is  what  harasses  the  men  most. 
They  soon  developed  a  contempt  for  German 
rifle  fire,  and  it  became  a  very  persistent  joke 
in  the  trenches.  But  nearly  all  agree  that  Ger- 
man artillery  is  "  hell  let  loose."  That  is  what 
the  enemy  intended  it  to  be,  but  they  did  not 
reckon  upon  the  terrors  of  Hades  making  so 
small  an  impression  upon  the  British  soldier. 
There  is  an  illuminating  passage  in  an  official 
statement  issued  from  the  General  Headquar- 
ters: 

"  The  object  of  the  great  proportion  of  artil- 
lery the  Germans  employ  is  to  beat  down  the 
resistance  of  their  enemy  by  a  concentrated 
and  prolonged  fire,  and  to  shatter  their  nerve 
with  high  explosives  before  the  infantry  at- 
tack is  launched.  They  seem  to  have  relied 
on  doing  this  with  us ;  but  they  have  not  done 
so,  though  it  has  taken  them  several  costly 
experiments  to  discover  this  fact.  From  the 
statements  of  prisoners,  indeed,  it  appears  that 


22        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

they  have  been  greatly  disappointed  by  the 
moral  effect  produced  by  their  heavy  guns, 
which,  despite  the  actual  losses  inflicted,  has 
not  been  at  all  commensurate  with  the  colossal 
expenditure  of  ammunition  which  has  really 
been  wasted.  By  this  it  is  not  implied  that 
their  artillery  fire  is  not  good.  It  is  more  than 
good;  it  is  excellent.  But  the  British  soldier 
is  a  difficult  person  to  impress  or  depress,  even 
by  immense  shells  filled  with  high  explosives 
which  detonate  with  terrific  violence  and  form 
craters  large  enough  to  act  as  graves  for  five 
horses.  The  German  howitzer  shells  are  8  to 
9  inches  in  caliber,  and  on  impact  they  send 
up  columns  of  greasy  black  smoke.  On  ac- 
count of  this  they  are  irreverently  dubbed 
*  Coal-boxes,'  *  Black  Marias,'  or  *  Jack  John- 
sons '  by  the  soldiers.  Men  who  take  things 
in  this  spirit,  are,  it  seems,  likely  to  throw  out 
the  calculations  based  on  the  loss  of  moral  so 
carefully  framed  by  the  German  military  phi- 
losophers." 

Every  word  of  this  admirable  official  mes- 
sage is  borne  out  by  the  men's  own  version  of 
their  experiences  of  artillery  fire.  "  At  first 
the  din  is  terrific,  and  you  feel  as  if  your 
ears  would  burst  and  the  teeth  fall  out  of 
your  head,"  writes  one  of  the  West  Kents, 
"  but,  of  course,  you  can  get  used  to  anything, 


SENSATIONS  UNDER  FIRE       23 

and  our  artillerymen  give  them  a  bit  of  hell 
back,  I  can  tell  you."  "  The  sensation  of  find- 
ing myself  among  screaming  shells  was  all 
new  to  me,"  says  Corporal  Butlin,  Lancashire 
Fusiliers,  "  but  after  the  first  terrible  moments, 
which  were  enough  to  unnerve  anybody,  I  be- 
came used  to  the  situation.  Afterwards  the 
din  had  no  effect  upon  me."  And  describing 
an  artillery  duel  a  gunner  declares :  "  It  was 
butcher's  work.  We  just  rained  shells  on  the 
Germans  until  we  were  deaf  and  choking.  I 
don't  think  a  gun  on  their  position  could  have 
sold  for  old  iron  after  we  had  finished,  and  the 
German  gunners  would  be  just  odd  pieces  of 
clothing  and  bits  of  accouterment.  It  seems 
*  swanky '  to  say  so,  but  once  you  get  over  the 
first  shock  you  go  on  chewing  biscuits  and  to- 
bacco when  the  shells  are  bursting  all  round. 
You  don't  seem  to  mind  it  any  more  than 
smoking  in  a  hailstorm." 

Smoking  is  the  great  consolation  of  the  sol- 
diers. They  smoke  whenever  they  can,  and 
the  soothing  cigarette  is  their  best  friend  in 
the  trenches.  "  We  can  go  through  anything 
so  long  as  we  have  tobacco,"  is  a  passage  from 
a  soldier's  letter;  and  this  is  the  burden  of 
nearly  all  the  messages  from  the  front.  "  The 
fight  was  pretty  hot  while  it  lasted,  but  we 
were  all  as  cool  as  Liffy  water,  and  smoked 


24        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

cigarettes  while  the  shells  shrieked  blue  mur- 
der over  our  heads,"  is  an  Irishman's  account 
of  the  effect  of  the  big  German  guns. 

The  noise  of  battle  —  especially  the  roar  of 
artillery  —  is  described  in  several  letters.  "  It 
is  like  standing  in  a  railway  station  with  heavy 
expresses  constantily  tearing  through,"  is  an 
officer's  impression  of  it.  A  wounded  Gordon 
Highlander  dismisses  it  as  no  more  terrible 
than  a  bad  thunderstorm :  "  You  get  the 
same  din  and  the  big  flashes  of  light  in  front 
of  you,  and  now  and  then  the  chance  of  being 
knocked  over  by  a  bullet  or  piece  of  shell,  just 
as  you  might  be  struck  by  lightning."  That 
is  the  real  philosophy  of  the  soldier.  "  After 
all,  we  are  may -be  as  safe  here  as  you  are  in 
Piccadilly,"  says  another;  and  when  men 
have  come  unhurt  out  of  infinite  danger  they 
grow  sublimely  fatalistic  and  cheerful.  An 
officer  in  the  Cavalry  Division,  for  instance, 
writes :  "  I  am  coming  back  all  right,  never 
fear.  Have  been  in  such  tight  corners  and 
under  such  fire  that  if  I  were  meant  to  go  I 
should  have  gone  by  now,  I'm  sure."  And  it 
is  the  same  with  the  men.  "  Having  gone 
through  six  battles  without  a  scratch,"  says 
Private  A.  Sunderland,  of  Bolton,  "  I  thought 
I  would  never  be  hit."  Later  on,  however, 
he  was  wounded. 


SENSATIONS  UNDER  FIRE       25 


Though  the  artillery  fire  has  proved  most 
destructive  to  all  ranks,  by  far  the  worst  ordeal 
of  the  troops  was  the  long  retreat  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  war.  It  exhausted  and  exas- 
perated the  men.  They  grew  angry  and  im- 
patient. None  but  the  best  troops  in  the 
world,  with  a  profound  belief  in  the  judgment 
and  valor  of  their  officers,  could  have  stood 
up  against  it.  A  statement  by  a  driver  of  the 
Royal  Field  Artillery,  pubHshed  in  the  Even- 
ing News,  gives  a  vivid  impression  of  how  the 
men  felt.  "  I  have  no  clear  notion  of  the  order 
of  events  in  the  long  retreat,"  he  says;  "it 
was  a  nightmare,  like  being  seized  by  a  mad- 
man after  coming  out  of  a  serious  illness  and 
forced  towards  the  edge  of  a  precipice."  The 
constant  marching,  the  want  of  sleep,  the  rest- 
less and  (as  it  sometimes  seemed  to  the  men) 
purposeless  backward  movement  night  and  day 
drove  them  into  a  fury.  The  intensity  of  the 
warfare,  the  fierce  pressure  upon  the  mental 
and  physical  powers  of  endurance,  might  well 
have  exercised  a  mischievous  effect  upon  the 
men.  Instead,  however,  it  only  brought  out 
their  finest  qualities. 

In  an  able  article  in  Blackwood's  Magazine, 
on  "  Moral  Qualities  in  War,"  Major  C.  A.  L. 
Yate,  of  the  King's  Own  Yorkshire  Light  In- 
fantry, dealt  with  the  "  intensity  "  of  the  war 


26        TOMA/[Y  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

strain,  of  which  he  himself  had  acute  expe- 
rience. "  Under  such  conditions,"  he  wrote, 
"  marksmen  may  achieve  no  more  than  the 
most  erratic  shots;  the  smartest  corps  may 
quickly  degenerate  into  a  rabble;  the  easiest 
tasks  will  often  appear  impossible.  An  army 
can  weather  trials  such  as  those  just  depicted 
only  if  it  be  collectively  considered  in  that 
healthy  state  of  mind  which  the  term  moral 
implies."  It  is  just  that  moral  which  the 
British  Expeditionary  Force  has  been  proved 
to  possess  in  so  rich  a  measure,  and  which  must 
belong  to  all  good  soldiers  in  these  days  of 
nerve-shattering  war. 

Little  touches  of  pathos  are  not  wanting  in 
the  scenes  pictured  in  the  soldiers'  letters,  and 
they  bring  an  element  of  humanity  into  the 
cold,  well-ordered,  practical  business  of  war. 
Men  who  will  meet  any  personal  danger  with- 
out flinching  often  find  the  mists  floating 
across  their  eyes  when  a  comrade  is  struck 
down  at  their  side.  Private  Plant,  Manchester 
Regiment,  tells  how  his  pal  was  eating  a  bit  of 
bread  and  cheese  when  he  was  knocked  over : 
"  Poor  chap,  he  just  managed  to  ask  me  to 
tell  his  missus."  "  War  is  rotten  when  you 
see  your  best  pal  curl  up  at  your  feet,"  com- 
ments another.  "  One  of  our  chaps  got  hit 
in  the   face  with  a  shrapnel  bullet,"  Private 


SENSATIONS  UNDER  FIRE       27 


Sidney  Smith,  First  Warwickshires,  relates. 
''*Hurt,  Bill?'  I  said  to  him.  'Good  luck 
to  the  old  regiment,'  says  he.  Then  he  rolled 
over  on  his  back."  "  Partings  of  this  kind  are 
sad  enough,"  says  an  Irish  Dragoon,  "  but 
we've  just  got  to  sigh  and  get  used  to  it." 

Their  own  injuries  and  sufferings  don't  seem 
to  worry  them  much.     The  sensation  of  get- 
ting wounded  is  simply  told.     One  man,  shot 
through  the  arm,  felt  "  only  a  bit  of  a  sting, 
nothing  particular.     Just  like  a  sharp  needle 
going  into  me.     I  thought  it  was  nothing  till 
my  rifle  dropped  out  of  my  hand,  and  my  arm 
fell.     Rotten  luck."     That  is  the  feeling  of  a 
clean  bullet  wound.     Shrapnel,  however,  hurts 
■ —  "  hurts  pretty  badly,"  Tommy  says.     And 
the  lance  and  the  bayonet  make  ugly  gashes. 
In   sensitive     men,    however,    the    continuous 
shell-fire  produces  effects  that  are  often  as  se- 
rious as  wounds.     "  Some,"  says  Mr.  Geoffrey 
Young,   the   Daily   News  and   Leader  corre- 
spondent, "  suffer  from  a  curious  aphasia,  some 
get  dazed  and  speechless,  some  deafened  " ;  but 
of  course  their  recovery  is  fairly  rapid,  and 
the   German  "  Black   Marias "   soon  exhaust 
their  terrors.     A  man  may  lose  his  memory 
and  have  but  a  hazy  idea  of  the  day  of  the 
week  or  the  hour  of  the  day,  but  Tommy  still 
keeps  his  nerve,  and  after  his  first  experience 


28        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


of  the  enemy's  fire,  to  quote  his  own  words, 
"  doesn't  care  one  d about  the  danger." 

As  showing  the  general  feehng  of  the  edu- 
cated soldier,  independent  altogether  of  his  na- 
tionality, it  is  worth  quoting  two  other  expe- 
riences, both  Russian.  Mr.  Stephen  Graham 
in  the  Times  recites  the  sensations  of  a  young 
Russian  officer.  "  The  feeling  under  fire  at  first 
is  unpleasant,"  he  admits,  *'  but  after  a  while 
it  becomes  even  exhilarating.  One  feels  an 
extraordinary  freedom  in  the  midst  of  death." 
The  following  is  a  quotation  from  a  soldier's 
letter  sent  by  Mr.  H.  Williams,  the  Daily 
Chronicle  correspondent  at  Petrograd :  "  One 
talks  of  hell  fire  on  the  battlefield,  but  I  assure 
you  it  makes  no  more  impression  on  me  now 
than  the  tooting  of  motors.  Habit  is  every- 
thing, especially  in  war,  where  all  the  logic 
and  psychology  of  one's  actions  are  the  exact 
reverse  of  a  civilian's.  .  .  .  The  whole  sensa- 
tion of  fear  is  atrophied.  We  don't  care  a 
farthing  for  our  lives.  .  .  .  We  don't  think  of 
danger.  In  this  new  frame  of  mind  we  sim- 
ply go  and  do  the  perfectly  normal,  natural 
things  that  you  call  heroism." 

When  the  heroic  things  are  done  and  there 
comes  a  lull  in  the  fighting,  it  is  sweet  to  sink 
down  in  the  trenches  worn  out,  exhausted,  un- 
utterly  drowsy,  and  snatch  a  brief  unconscious 


SENSATIONS  UNDER  FIRE       29 

hour  of  sleep.  Some  of  the  men  fall  asleep 
with  the  rifles  still  hot  in  their  hands,  their 
heads  resting  on  the  barrels.  Magnificently  as 
they  endure  fatigue,  there  comes  a  time  when 
the  strain  is  intolerable,  and,  *'  beat  to  the 
world,"  as  one  officer  describes  it,  they  often 
sink  into  profound  sleep,  like  horses,  standing. 
At  these  times  it  seems  as  if  nothing  could 
wake  them.  Shrapnel  may  thunder  around 
them  in  vain;  they  never  move  a  muscle.  In 
Mr.  Stephen  Crane's  fine  phrase,  they  "\  sleep 
the  brave  sleep  of  wearied  men." 


30        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


III 
HUMOR  IN  THE  TRENCHES 

ONE  of  the  most  surprising  of  the  many 
revelations  of  this  war  has  been  that 
of  the  gaiety,  humor,  and  good  nature 
of  the  British  soldier.  All  the  correspondents, 
English  and  French,  remark  upon  it.  A  new 
Tommy  Atkins  has  arisen,  whose  cheery  laugh 
and  joke  and  music-hall  song  have  enlivened 
not  only  the  long,  weary,  exhausting  marches, 
but  even  the  grim  and  unnerving  hours  in  the 
trenches.  Theirs  was  not  the  excitement  of 
men  going  into  battle,  nervous  and  uncertain 
of  their  behavior  under  fire ;  it  w^as  rather  that 
of  light-hearted  first-nighters  waiting  in  the 
queue  to  witness  some  new  and  popular  drama. 
"  A  party  of  the  King's  Own,"  writes  Sap- 
per Mugridge  of  the  Royal  Engineers,  "  went 
into  their  first  action  shouting  '  Early  doors 
this  way !  Early  doors,  ninepence ! '  "  "  The 
Kaiser's  crush  "  is  the  description  given  by  a 
sergeant    of    the    Coldstream    Guards    as    he 


HUMOR  IN  THE  TRENCHES      31 

watched  a  dense  mass  of  Germans  emerging 
to  the  attack  from  a  wood,  and  prepared  to 
meet  them  with  the  bayonet.  When  first  the 
fierce  German  searchHghts  were  turned  on  the 
British  Hnes  a  little  cockney  in  the  Middlesex 
Regiment  exclaimed  to  his  comrade :  "  Lord, 
Bill,  it's  just  like  a  play,  an'  us  in  the  lime- 
light " ;  and  as  the  artillery  fusillade  passed 
over  their  heads,  and  a  great  ironical  cheer  rose 
from  the  British  trenches,  he  added :  *'  But 
it's  the  Kaiser  wot's  gettin'  the  bird." 

Many  of  the  wounded  who  have  been  in- 
valided home  were  asked  whether  this  humor 
in  the  trenches  is  the  real  thing,  or  only  an 
affected  drollery  to  conceal  the  emotions  the 
men  feel  in  the  face  of  death;  but  they  all 
declare  that  it  is  quite  spontaneous.  One  old 
soldier,  well  accustomed  to  being  under  fire, 
freely  admitted  that  he  had  never  been  with 
such  a  cheery  and  courageous  lot  of  young- 
sters in  his  life.  *'  They  take  everything  that 
comes  to  them  as  *  all  in  the  game,'  "  he  said, 
"  and  nothing  could  now  damp  their  spirits." 

Songs,  cards  and  jokes  fill  up  the  waiting 
hours  in  the  trenches;  under  fire,  indeed,  the 
wit  seems  to  become  sharpest.  A  corporal  in 
the  Motor  Cycle  Section  of  the  Royal  Engi- 
neers writes  :  "  At  first  the  German  artillery 
was  rotten.     Three  batteries  bombarded  an  en- 


32        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

trenched  British  battahon  for  two  hours  and 
only  seven  men  were  killed.  The  noise  was 
simply  deafening,  but  so  little  effect  had  the 
fire  that  the  men  shouted  with  laughter  and 
held  their  caps  up  on  the  end  of  their  rifles 
to  give  the  German  gunners  a  bit  of  encour- 
agement." The  same  spirit  of  raillery  is 
spoken  of  by  a  Seaforth  Highlander,  who  says 
one  of  the  Wiltshires  stuck  out  in  the  trenches 
a  tin  can  on  which  was  the  notice  "  Business 
as  Usual."  As,  however,  it  gave  the  enemy 
too  good  a  target  he  was  cheerily  asked  to 
"  take  the  blooming  thing  in  again,"  and  in  so 
doing  he  was  wounded  twice. 

"  The  liveliest  Sunday  I  ever  spent "  is  how 
Private  P.  Case,  Liverpool  Regiment,  describes 
the  fighting  at  Mons.  "  It  was  a  glorious 
time,"  writes  Bandsman  Wall,  Connaught 
Rangers ;  "  we  had  nothing  to  do  but  shoot  the 
Germans  as  they  came  up,  just  like  knocking 
dolls  down  at  the  fair  ground."  *'  A  very 
pleasant  morning  in  the  trenches,"  remarks  one 
of  the  Officers'  Special  Reserve;  and  another 
writer,  after  being  in  several  engagements,  says, 
"  This  is  really  the  best  summer  holiday  I've 
ever  had." 

Nothing  could  excel  the  coolness  of  the  men 
under  fire.  With  a  hail  of  bullets  and  shells 
raining  about  them  they  sing  and  jest  with 


HUMOR  IN  THE  TRENCHES      33 

each  other  unconcernedly.  Wiping  the  dust 
of  battle  from  his  face  and  loading  up  for  an- 
other shot,  a  Highlander  will  break  forth  into 
one  of  Harry  Lauder's  songs: 

"  It's  a  wee  deoch  an'  doruis, 
Jist  a  wee  drap,  that's  a'," 

and  with  a  laugh  some  English  Tommies  will 
make  a  dash  at  the  line  ''  a  braw,  bricht,  min- 
licht  nicht,"  with  ludicrous  consequences  to  the 
pronunciation !  According  to  "  Joe,"  of  the 
2nd  Royal  Scots,  the  favorite  songs  in  the 
trenches  or  round  the  camp-fire  are  *'  Never 
Mind,"  and  "  The  Last  Boat  is  leaving  for 
Home."  "  Hitchy  Koo  "  is  another  favorite, 
and  was  being  sung  in  the  midst  of  a  German 
attack.  "  One  man  near  me  was  wounded," 
says  a  comrade,  ''  but  he  sang  the  chorus  to  the 
finish." 

It  is  remarkable  how  these  songs  and  witti- 
cisms steady  the  soldiers  under  fire.  In  a  letter 
in  the  Evening  Nezvs  Sergeant  J.  Baker  writes  : 
"  Some  of  our  men  have  made  wonderful  prac- 
tise with  the  rifle,  and  they  are  beginning  to 
fancy  themselves  as  marksmen.  If  they  don't 
hit  something  every  time  they  think  they  ought 
to  see  a  doctor  about  it.  .  .  .  Artillery  fire, 
however,  is  the  deadliest  thing  out,  and  it  takes 
a  lot  of  nerve  to  stand  it.     The  Germans  keep 


34        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

up  an  infernal  din  from  morning  till  far  into 
the  night ;  but  they  don't  do  half  as  much  dam- 
age as  you  would  think,  though  it  is  annoying  to 
have  all  that  row  going  on  when  you're  trying 
to  write  home  or  make  up  the  regimental  ac- 
counts." 

Writing  home  is  certainly  done  under  cir- 
cumstances which  are  apt  to  have  a  disturbing 
effect  upon  the  literary  style.  "  Excuse  this 
scrawl,"  writes  one  soldier,  "  the  German  shells 
have  interrupted  me  six  times  already,  and  I 
had  to  dash  out  with  my  bayonet  before  I  was 
able  to  finish  it  off."  Another  concludes: 
"  Well,  mother,  I  must  close  now.  The  bullets 
are  a  bit  too  thick  for  letter-writing."  To  a 
young  engineer  the  experience  was  so  strange 
that  he  describes  it  as  "  like  writing  in  a 
dream." 

Some  of  the  nick-names  given  by  Tommy 
Atkins  to  the  German  shells  have  already  been 
quoted,  but  the  most  amusing  is  surely  that 
in  a  letter  from  Private  Watters.  "  One  of 
our  men,"  he  relates,  "  has  got  a  ripping  cure 
for  neuralgia,  but  he  isn't  going  to  take  out  a 
patent  for  it!  While  lying  in  the  trenches, 
mad  with  pain  in  the  face,  a  shell  burst  beside 
him.  He  wasn't  hit,  but  the  explosion  ren- 
dered him  unconscious  for  a  time,  and  when  he 
recovered,  his  neuralgia  had  gone.     His  name 


HUMOR  IN  THE  TRENCHES      35 

is  Palmer,  so  now  we  call  the  German  shells 
*  Palmer's  Neuralgia  Cure.'  " 

The  amusing  story  of  a  long  march  afforded 
some  mirth  in  the  trenches  when  it  got  to  be 
known.  A  party  of  artillerymen  who  had  been 
toiling  along  in  the  dark  for  hours,  and  were 
like  to  drop  with  fatigue,  ran  straight  into  a 
troop  of  horsemen  posted  near  a  wood.  "  We 
thought  they  were  Germans,"  one  gunner  re- 
lated, "  for  w^e  couldn't  make  out  the  colors 
of  the  uniforms  or  anything  else,  until  we 
heard  some  one  sing  out  '  Where  the  hell  do 
you  think  you're  going  to  ? '  Then  we  knew 
zve  were  with  friends.'^ 

Football  is  the  great  topic  of  discussion  in 
the  trenches.  Mr.  Harold  Ashton,  of  the 
Daily  Nezvs  and  Leader,  relates  an  amusing 
encounter  with  a  Royal  Horse  Artilleryman 
to  whom  he  showed  a  copy  of  the  paper. 
"Where's  the  sporting  news?"  asked  the  ar- 
tilleryman as  he  glanced  over  the  pages.  "  Shot 
away  in  the  war,"  replied  Mr.  Ashton. 
"What!"  exclaimed  Tommy,  "not  a  line 
about  the  Arsenal?  Well,  I'm  blowed!  This 
is  a  war!"  "We  are  all  in  good  spirits," 
writes  a  bombardier  in  the  44th  Battery,  Royal 
Artillery,  "  and  mainly  anxious  to  know  how 
football  is  going  on  in  Newcastle  now."  "  I  got 
this,"  said  a  Gordon  Highlander,  referring  to 


36        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

his  wound,  "  because  I  became  excited  in  an 
argument  with  wee  Geordie  Ferris,  of  our  com- 
pany, about  the  chances  of  Queen's  Park  and 
Rangers  this  season." 

An  artilleryman  sends  a  description  of  the 
fighting  written  in  the  jargon  of  the  football 
field.  He  describes  the  war  as  "  the  great 
match  for  the  European  Cup,  which  is  being 
played  before  a  record  gate,  though  you  can't 
perhaps  see  the  crowd."  In  spite  of  all  their 
swank,  he  adds,  "  the  Germans  haven't  scored 
a  goal  yet,  and  I  wouldn't  give  a  brass  farthing 
for  their  chances  of  lifting  the  Cup."  At  the 
battle  of  Mons  it  was  noticed  that  some  soldiers 
even  went  into  action  with  a  football  attached 
to  their  knapsacks ! 

But  there  is  no  end  to  the  humor  of  Tommy 
Atkins.  Mr.  Hamilton  Fyfe  tells  in  the 
Daily  Mail  how  he  stopped  to  sympathize  with 
a  wounded  soldier  on  the  roadside  near  Mons. 
Asking  if  his  injury  was  very  painful  he  re- 
ceived the  remarkable  reply :  "  Oh,  it's  not 
that.  I  lost  my  pipe  in  the  last  blooming 
charge."  In  a  letter  from  the  front,  published 
in  the  Glasgow  Herald,  this  passage  occurs: 
"  Our  fellows  have  signed  the  pledge  because 
Kitchener  wants  them  to.  But  they  all  say, 
'  God  help  the  Germans,  when  we  get  hold  of 
them  for  making  us  teetotal.'  " 


HUMOR  IN  THE  TRENCHES      Z7 

What  a  Frenchman  describes  as  the  "  new 
British  battle-cry  "  is  another  source  of  amuse- 
ment. Whenever  artillery  or  rifle  fire  sweeps 
over  their  trenches  some  facetious  Tommy  is 
sure  to  shout,  "Are  we  downhearted?"  and 
is  met  with  a  resounding  "  No !  "  and  laughter 
all  along  the  line. 

To  those  at  home  all  this  fun  may  seem  a 
little  thoughtless,  but  to  those  in  the  fighting 
line  it  is  perfectly  natural  and  unforced.  "  Our 
men  lie  in  the  trenches  and  play  marbles  with 
the  bullets  from  shrapnel  shells,"  writes  one 
of  the  Royal  Engineers ;  "  we  have  been  in 
two  countries  and  hope  to  tour  a  third,"  says  a 
letter  from  a  cheery  artilleryman;  and  Mr. 
W.  L.  Pook  (Godalming),  who  is  with  one 
of  the  field  post-ofiices,  declares  that  things  are 
going  so  badly  with  "  our  dear  old  chum  Wil- 

helm  "  that  "  I've  bet  X a  new  hat  that 

I'll  be  home  by  Christmas." 

Bets  are  common  in  the  trenches.  Gunners 
wager  about  the  number  of  their  hits,  riflemen 
on  the  number  of  misses  by  the  enemy.  Dar- 
ing spirits,  before  making  an  attack,  have  even 
been  known  to  bet  on  the  number  of  guns  they 
would  capture.  "  We  have  already  picked  up 
a  good  deal  in  the  way  of  German  souvenirs," 
says  one  wag;  '*  enough,  indeed,  to  set  a  de- 
cent-sized army  up  in  business."     The  British 


38        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

Army,  indeed,  is  an  army  of  sportsmen.  Every 
man  must  have  his  game,  his  friendly  wager, 
his  joke,  and  his  song.  As  one  officer  told  his 
men :  "  You  are  a  lively  lot  of  beggars.  You 
don't  seem  to  realize  that  we're  at  war." 

But  they  do.  That  is  just  Tommy's  way. 
It  is  how  he  wins  through.  He  always  feels 
fit,  and  he  enjoys  himself.  Corporal  Graham 
Hodson,  Royal  Engineers,  provides  a  typical 
Atkins  letter  with  which  to  conclude  this  chap- 
ter. "  I  am  feeling  awfully  well/'  he  writes, 
"  and  am  enjoying  myself  no  end.  All  lights 
are  out  at  eight  o'clock,  so  we  lie  in  our  blan- 
kets and  tell  each  other  lies  about  the  number 
of  Germans  we  have  shot  and  the  hairbreadth 
escapes  we  have  had.     Oh,  it's  a  great  life! " 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  BAYONET  39 


IV 
THE  MAN  WITH  THE  BAYONET 

SOME  military  writers  have  declared  that 
with  the  increasing  range  of  rifle  and 
artillery  fire  the  day  of  the  bayonet  is 
over.  Battles,  they  say,  must  now  be  fought 
with  the  combatants  miles  apart.  Bayonets 
are  as  obsolete  as  spears  and  battle  axes.  Evi- 
dently this  theory  had  the  full  support  of  the 
German  General  Staff,  whose  military  wisdom 
was  in  some  quarters  believed  to  be  infallible 
—  before  the  war. 

As  events  have  proved,  however,  there  has 
been  no  more  rude  awakening  for  the  German 
soldiery  than  the  efficacy  of  the  bayonet  in  the 
hands  of  Tommy  Atkins.  In  spite  of  the  em- 
ployment of  gigantic  siege  guns  and  their  enor- 
mous superiority  in  strength,  though  not  in 
handling,  of  artillery,  the  Germans  have  failed 
to  keep  the  Allies  at  the  theoretical  safe  dis- 
tance.    They  have  been  forced  to  accept  hand- 


40        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

to-hand  fighting,  and  in  every  encounter  at 
close  quarters  there  has  never  been  a  moment's 
doubt  as  to  the  result.  They  have  shriveled 
up  in  the  presence  of  the  bayonet,  and  fled  in 
disorder  at  the  first  glimpse  of  naked  steel. 
It  is  not  that  the  Germans  lack  courage. 
"  They  are  brave  enough,"  our  soldiers  admit 
with  perfect  frankness,  "  but  the  bayonet  ter- 
rifies them,  and  they  cry  out  in  agony  at  the 
sight  of  it.'* 

Admittedly,  it  requires  more  than  ordinary 
courage  to  face  a  bayonet  charge,  just  as  it 
calls  for  a  high  order  of  valor  to  use  that 
deadly  weapon.  Instances  are  given  of  young 
soldiers  experiencing  a  sinking  sensation,  a  feel- 
ing of  collapse,  at  the  order  "  Fix  Bayonets !  " 
their  hands  trembling  violently  over  the  task. 
But  when  the  bugle  sounds  the  charge,  and  the 
wild  dash  at  the  enemy's  lines  has  begun,  with 
the  skirl  of  the  pipes  to  stir  up  the  blood,  the 
nerves  stiffen  and  the  hands  grip  the  rifle  with 
grim  determination.  "  It  was  his  life  or 
mine,"  said  a  young  Highlander  describing  his 
first  battle,  "  and  I  ran  the  bayonet  through 
him."  There  is  no  time  for  sentiment,  and 
there  can  be  no  thought  of  chivalry.  Just  get 
the  ugly  business  over  and  done  with  as  quickly 
as  possible.  One  soldier  tells  what  a  sense  of 
horror  swept  over  him  when  his  bayonet  stuck 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  BAYONET     41 

in  his  victim,  and  he  had  to  use  all  his  strength 
to  wrench  it  out  of  the  body  in  time  to  tackle 
the  next  man. 

Many  men  describe  the  effects  of  the  British 
bayonet  charges  and  the  way  the  Germans  ^ — 
Uhlans,  Guards,  and  artillerymen  —  recoil 
from  them.  "If  you  go  near  them  w^ith  the 
bayonet  they  squeal  like  pigs,"  "  they  beg  for 
mercy  on  their  knees,"  "  the  way  they  cringe 
before  the  bayonet  is  pitiful" — such  are  ex- 
amples of  the  hundreds  of  references  to  this 
method  of  attack. 

Private  Whittaker,  Coldstream  Guards, 
gives  a  vivid  account  of  the  fighting  around 
Compiegne.  "  The  Germans  rushed  at  us,"  he 
writes,  "  like  a  crowd  streaming  from  a  Cup- 
tie  at  the  Crystal  Palace.  You  could  not  miss 
them.  Our  bullets  plowed  into  them,  but  still 
on  they  came.  I  was  well  entrenched,  and 
my  rifle  got  so  hot  I  could  hardly  hold  it.  I 
was  wondering  if  I  should  have  enough  bul- 
lets, when  a  pal  shouted,  *  Up  Guards  and  at 
'em.'  The  next  second  he  was  rolled  over  with 
a  nasty  knock  on  the  shoulder.  When  we 
really  did  get  orders  to  get  at  them  we  made 
no  mistakes,  I  can  tell  you.  They  cringed  at 
the  bayonets.  Those  on  the  left  wing  tried 
to  get  round  us.  We  yelled  like  demons,  and 
racing  as  hard  as  we  could  for  quite  500  yards 


42        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

we  cut  up  nearly  every  man  who  did  not  run 
away." 

One  of  the  most  graphic  pictures  of  the  war 
is  that  of  attack  in  the  night  related  by  a  ser- 
geant of  the  Worcester  Regiment,  who  was 
wounded  in  the  fierce  battle  of  the  Aisne.  He 
was  on  picket  duty  when  the  attack  opened. 
"  It  was  a  little  after  midnight,"  he  said 
"  when  the  men  ahead  suddenly  fell  back  to 
report  strange  sounds  and  movements  along  the 
front.  The  report  had  just  been  made  when 
we  heard  a  rustling  in  the  bushes  near  us.  We 
challenged  and,  receiving  no  reply,  fired  into 
the  darkness.  Immediately  the  enemy  rushed 
upon  us,  but  the  sleeping  camp  had  been  awak- 
ened by  the  firing,  and  our  men  quickly  stood 
to  arms.  As  the  heavy  German  guns  began  to 
thunder  and  the  searchlights  to  play  on  our 
position  we  gathered  that  a  whole  Army  corps 
was  about  to  be  engaged  and,  falling  back 
upon  the  camp,  we  found  our  men  ready.  No 
sooner  had  we  reached  the  trenches  than  there 
rose  out  of  the  darkness  in  front  of  us  a  long 
line  of  white  faces.  The  Germans  were  upon 
us.  *  Fire ! '  came  the  order,  and  we  sent  a 
volley  into  them.  They  wavered,  and  dark 
patches  in  their  ranks  showed  that  part  of  the 
white  line  had  been  blotted  out.  But  on  they 
came  again,  the  gaps  filled  up  from  behind. 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  BAYONET     43 


At  a  hundred  yards'  range,  the  first  Hne  dropped 
to  fix  bayonets,  the  second  opened  fire,  and 
others  followed.  We  kept  on  firing  and  we 
saw  their  men  go  down  in  heaps,  but  finally 
they  swarmed  forward  with  the  bayonet  and 
threw  all  their  weight  of  numbers  upon  us. 
We  gave  them  one  terrible  volley,  but  nothing 
could  have  stopped  the  ferocious  impetus  of 
their  attack.  For  one  terrible  moment  our 
ranks  bent  under  the  dead  weight,  but  the  Ger- 
mans, too,  wavered,  and  in  that  moment  we 
gave  them  the  bayonet,  and  hurled  them  back 
in  disorder.  It  was  then  I  got  a  bayonet 
thrust,  but  as  I  fell  I  heard  our  boys  cheer- 
ing and  I  knew  we  had  finished  them  for  the 
night." 

This  is  one  of  the  few  accounts  that  tell  of 
the  Germans  using  the  bayonet  on  the  offensive, 
and  their  experience  of  the  businesslike  way 
in  which  Tommy  Atkins  manipulates  this 
weapon  has  given  them  a  wholesome  dread  of 
such  encounters.  Private  G.  Bridgeman,  4th 
Royal  Fusiliers,  tells  of  the  glee  with  w^hich 
his  regiment  received  the  order  to  advance  with 
the  bayonet.  "  We  were  being  knocked  over 
in  dozens- by  the  artillery  and  couldn't  get  our 
own  back,"  he  writes,*  "  and  I  can  tell  you  we 
were  like  a  lot  of  schoolboys  at  a  treat  when 

*  Daily  Express,  Sept.  25th,  1914. 


44        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


we  got  the  order  to  fix  bayonets,  for  we  knew 
we  should  fix  them  then.  We  had  about  200 
yards  to  cover  before  we  got  near  them,  and 
then  we  let  them  have  it  In  the  neck.  It  put 
us  in  mind  of  tossing  hay,  only  we  had  human 
bodies.  I  was  separated  from  my  neighbors 
and  was  on  my  own  when  I  was  attacked  by 
three  Germans.  I  had  a  lively  time  and  was 
nearly  done  when  a  comrade  came  to  my  rescue. 
I  had  already  made  sure  of  two,  but  the  third 
would  have  finished  me.  I  already  had  about 
three  inches  of  steel  in  my  side  when  my  chum 
finished  him.'' 

The  charge  of  the  Coldstream  Guards  at  Le 
Gateau  is  another  bayonet  exploit  that  ought 
to  be  recorded.  "  It  was  getting  dark  when 
we  found  that  the  Kaiser's  crush  was  coming 
through  the  forest  to  cut  of¥  our  force,"  a  ser- 
geant relates,  "  but  we  got  them  everywhere, 
not  a  single  man  getting  through.  About  200 
of  us  drove  them  down  one  street,  and  didn't 
the  devils  squeal.  We  came  upon  a  mass  of 
them  in  the  main  thoroughfare,  but  they  soon 
lost  heart  and  we  actually  climbed  over  their 
dead  and  wounded  which  were  heaped  up,  to 
get  at  the  others."  "  What  a  sight  it  was,  and 
how  our  fellows  yelled ! "  says  another  Cold- 
streamer,  describing  the  same  exploit. 

Tommy  Atkins  has  long  been  known  for  his 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  BAYONET     45 

accurate  artillery  and  rifle  fire,  but  the  bayonet 
is  his  favorite  arm  in  battle.  Through  all  our 
wars  it  has  proved  a  deciding,  if  not  indeed 
the  decisive,  factor  in  the  campaign.  Once 
it  has  been  stained  in  service  he  fondles  it  as, 
next  to  his  pipe,  his  best  friend.  And  it  is  the 
same  with  the  Frenchman.  He  calls  his  bay- 
onet his  "  little  Rosalie,"  and  lays  its  ruddy 
edges  against  his  cheek  with  a  caress. 


46        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


V 
CAVALRY  EXPLOITS 


W 


^'"^  T  TE  have  been  through  the  Uhlans 
Hke  brown  paper."  In  this  strik- 
ing phrase  Sir  PhiHp  Chetwode, 
commanding  the  5th  Cavalry  Brigade,  describes 
the  brilliant  exploits  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Cambrai  when,  in  spite  of  odds  of  five  to  one, 
the  Prussian  Horse  were  cut  to  pieces.  Sir 
Philip  was  the  first  man  to  be  mentioned  in 
despatches,  and  Sir  John  French  does  not  hes- 
itate to  confirm  this  dashing  officer's  tribute 
to  his  men.  "  Our  cavalry,"  says  the  official 
message,  "  do  as  they  like  with  the  enemy." 

There  is  no  more  brilliant  page  in  the  history 
of  the  war  than  that  which  has  been  furnished 
to  the  historian  by  the  deeds  of  the  British 
cavalry.  They  carried  everything  before  them. 
In  a  single  encounter  the  reputation  of  the 
much-vaunted  Uhlans  was  torn  to  shreds. 

The  charge  of  the  9th  Lancers  at  Toulin  was 
a  fine  exploit.     It  was  Balaclava  over  again, 


CAVALRY  EXPLOITS  47 

with  a  gallant  Four  Hundred  charging  a  bat- 
tery of  eleven  German  guns.  But  there  was 
no  blunder  this  time ;  it  was  a  sacrifice  to  save 
the  5th  Infantry  Division  and  some  guns,  and 
the  heroic  Lancers  dashed  to  their  task  with  a 
resounding  British  cheer.  "  We  rode  abso- 
lutely into  death,"  says  a  corporal  of  the  regi- 
ment writing  home,  *'  and  the  colonel  told  us 
that  onlookers  never  expected  a  single  Lancer 
to  come  back.  About  400  charged  and  72 
rallied  afterwards,  but  during  the  week  200 
more  turned  up  wounded  and  otherwise.  You 
see,  the  infantry  of  ours  were  in  a  fix  and  no 
guns  but  four  could  be  got  round,  so  the  Gen- 
eral ordered  two  squadrons  of  the  9th  to 
charge,  as  a  sacrifice,  to  save  the  position.  The 
order  was  given,  but  not  only  did  A  and  B 
gallop  into  line,  but  C  squadron  also  wheeled 
and  came  up  with  a  roar.  It  was  magnificent, 
but  horrible.  The  regiment  was  swept  away 
before  1,000  yards  was  covered,  and  at  200 
yards  from  the  guns  I  was  practically  alone  — 
myself,  three  privates,  and  an  officer  of  our 
squadron.  We  wheeled  to  a  flank  on  the  col- 
onel's signal  and  rode  back.  I  was  mad  with 
rage,  a  feeling  I  cannot  describe.  But  we  had 
drawn  their  fire;  the  infantry  were  saved." 

"  It  was  the  most  magnificent  sight  I  ever 
saw,"  says  Driver  W.  Cryer,  R.F.A.,  who  wit- 


48        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

nessed  the  Lancers  go  into  action.  "  They 
rode  at  the  guns  like  men  inspired,"  declares 
another  spectator,  "  and  it  seemed  incredible 
that  any  could  escape  alive.  Lyddite  and 
melinite  swept  like  hail  across  the  thin  line  of 
intrepid  horsemen."  "  My  God !  How  they 
fell !  "  writes  Captain  Letorez,  who,  after  his 
horse  was  shot  under  him,  leapt  on  a  riderless 
animal  and  came  through  unhurt.  When  the 
men  got  up  close  to  the  German  guns  they 
found  themselves  riding  full  tilt  into  hidden 
wire  entanglements  —  seven  strands  of  barbed 
wire.  Horses  and  men  came  down  in  a  heap, 
and  few  of  the  brave  fellows  who  reached  this 
barrier  ever  returned. 

The  9th  Lancers  covered  themselves  with 
glory,  and  this  desperate  but  successful  exploit 
will  live  as  perhaps  the  most  stirring  and  dra- 
matic battle  story  of  the  war.  The  Germans 
were  struck  with  amazement  at  the  fearlessness 
of  these  horsemen.  Yet  the  9th  Lancers  them- 
selves took  their  honors  very  modestly.  "  We 
only  fooled  around  and  saved  some  guns,"  said 
one  of  the  Four  Hundred,  after  it  was  over. 
He  had  his  horse  shot  under  him  and  his  saddle 
blanket  drilled  through. 

Captain  F.  O.  Grenfell,  of  the  9th  Lancers, 
was  the  hero  of  an  incident  in  the  saving  of 
the  guns.     All  the  gunners  had  been  shot  down 


CAVALRY  EXPLOITS  49 

and  the  guns  looked  likely  to  fall  into  the 
enemy's  hands.  "  Look  here,  boys,"  said 
Grenfell,  "  we've  got  to  get  them  back.  Who'll 
help?  "  A  score  of  men  instantly  volunteered 
— ''  our  chaps  would  go  any W' here  with  Gren- 
fell," says  the  corporal  who  tells  the  story  — 
and  "  with  bullets  and  shrapnel  flying  around 
us,  off  we  went.  It  was  a  hot  time,  but  our 
captain  was  as  cool  as  on  parade,  and  kept  on 
saying,  *  It's  all  right;  they  can't  hit  us.'  Well, 
they  did  manage  to  hit  three  of  us  before  we 
saved  the  guns,  and  God  knows  how  any  of 
us  ever  escaped."  Later  on  Captain  Grenfell 
was  himself  wounded,  but  before  the  ambu- 
lance had  been  brought  up  to  carry  him  off  he 
sprang  into  a  passing  motor-car  and  dashed 
into  the  thick  of  the  fighting  again. 

The  1 8th  Hussars  and  the  4th  Dragoon 
Guards  were  also  in  these  brilliant  cavalry  en- 
gagements, but  did  not  suffer  anything  like 
so  badly  as  the  9th  Lancers.  Corporal  Clarke, 
of  the  Remount  Depot,  which  was  attached  to 
the  1 8th  Hussars,  thus  described  their  "  little 
scrap  "  with  the  German  horsemen  near  Lan- 
drecies :  "  We  received  orders  to  form  line 
(two  ranks),  and  the  charge  was  sounded. 
We  then  charged,  and  were  under  the  fire  of 
two  batteries,  one  on  each  side  of  the  cavalry. 
We  charged  straight  through  them,  and  on  re- 


50        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

forming  we  drove  the  Germans  back  towards 
the  1st  Lincoln  Regiment,  who  captured  those 
who  had  not  been  shot  down.  We  had  about 
103  men  missing,  and  we  were  about  1,900 
strong.  The  order  then  came  to  retreat,  and 
we  returned  in  the  direction  of  Cambrai,  but  we 
did  not  take  any  part  in  the  action  there." 

History  seems  to  be  repeating  itself  in 
amazing  ways  in  this  war.  Just  as  the  charge 
of  the  Light  Brigade  at  Balaclava  has  been 
reproduced  by  the  9th  Lancers,  so  the  Scots 
Greys  and  12th  Lancers  have  reproduced  the 
famous  charge  of  the  "  Greys  "  at  Waterloo. 
This  is  the  fight  which  aroused  the  enthusiasm 
of  Sir  Philip  Chetwode,  for  his  brigade  went 
through  the  German  cavalry  just  as  circus 
horses  might  leap  through  paper  hoops.  "  I 
watched  the  charge  of  the  Scots  Greys  and 
1 2th  Lancers,"  writes  Sergeant  C.  Meades,  of 
the  Berkshires.  "  It  was  grand.  I  could  see 
some  of  the  Germans  dropping  on  their  knees 
and  holding  up  their  arms.  Then,  as  soon  as 
our  cavalry  got  through,  the  Germans  picked 
up  their  rifles  and  started  firing  again.  Our 
men  turned  about  and  charged  back.  It  was 
no  use  the  Germans  putting  up  their  hands  a 
second  time.  Our  cavalry  cut  down  every  one 
they  came  to.  I  don't  think  there  were  ten 
Germans  left  out  of  about  2,000.     I  can  tell 


CAVALRY  EXPLOITS  51 

you  they  had  all  they  wanted  for  that  day/' 
An  officer  of  the  dragoons,  describing  the  same 
charge,  says  the  dragoon  guards  were  also 
in  it,  and  that  his  lads  were  "  as  keen  as  mus- 
tard." In  fact,  he  declares,  "  there  was  no 
holding  them  back.  Horses  and  men  posi- 
tively flew  at  the  Germans,  cutting  through 
much  heavier  mounts  and  heavier  men  than 
ours.  The  yelling  and  the  dash  of  the  lancers 
and  dragoon  guards  was  a  thing  never  to  be 
forgotten.  We  lost  very  heavily  at  Mons,  and 
it  is  a  marvel  how  some  of  our  fellows  pulled 
through.  They  positively  frightened  the  en- 
emy. We  did  terrible  execution,  and  our 
wrists  were  feeling  the  strain  of  heavy  riding 
before  sunset.  With  our  tunics  unbuttoned, 
we  had  the  full  use  of  our  right  arms  for  attack 
and  defense." 

Another  charge  of  the  Scots  Greys  is  thus 
described :  **  Seeing  the  wounded  getting  cut 
at  by  the  German  officers,  the  Scots  Greys  went 
mad,  and  even  though  retreat  had  been  sounded, 
with  a  non-commissioned  officer  leading,  they 
turned  on  the  Potsdam  Guards  and  hewed  their 
way  through,  their  officers  following.  Having 
got  through,  the  officers  took  command  again, 
formed  them  up,  wheeled,  and  came  back  the 
way  they  went.     It  was  a  sight  for  the  gods." 

Another  episode  was  the  capture  of  the  Ger- 


52        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

man  guns  by  the  2nd  and  5th  Dragoons.  An 
officer  of  the  5th  gives  an  account  of  the  ex- 
ploit. "  We  were  attacked  at  dawn,  in  a  fog," 
he  relates,  "  and  it  looked  bad  for  us,  but  we 
turned  it  into  a  victory.  Our  brigade  captured 
all  the  guns  of  the  German  cavalry  division, 
fourteen  in  all;  the  Bays  lost  two-thirds  of 
their  horses  and  many  men.  The  Gunner  Bat- 
tery of  ours  was  annihilated  (twenty  left),  but 
the  guns  were  saved,  as  we  held  the  ground 
at  the  end.  This  was  only  a  series  of  actions, 
as  we  have  been  at  it  all  day,  and  every  day. 
My  own  squadron  killed  sixteen  horses  and 
nine  Uhlans  in  a  space  of  50  ft.,  and  many 
others,  inhabitants  told  me,  were  lying  in  a 
wood  close  by,  where  they  had  crawled.  We 
killed  their  officer,  a  big  Postdam  Guard,  shot 
through  the  forehead.  L  Battery  fought  their 
guns  to  the  last,  '  Bradbury '  himself  firing  a 
gun  with  his  leg  off  at  the  knee;  a  shell  took 
off  his  other  leg.  He  asked  me  then  to  be  car- 
ried from  the  guns  so  that  the  men  could  not 
hear  or  see  him." 

One  of  the  2nd  Dragoons,  wounded  in  this 
engagement,  says  the  Bays  were  desperately 
eager  for  the  order  to  charge,  and  exultant 
when  the  bugle  sounded.  "  OfT  they  went, 
'  hell  for  leather,'  at  the  guns,"  is  how  he  de- 


CAVALRY  EXPLOITS  53 

scribed  it.  "  There  was  no  stopping  them  once 
they  got  on  the  move." 

''  No  stopping  them."  That  sums  up  what 
every  eye-witness  of  the  British  cavalry  charges 
says.  The  coolness  and  dash  of  the  men  in 
action  was  amazing.  Their  voices  rang  out 
as  they  spurred  their  horses  on,  and  when  they 
crashed  into  the  enemy,  the  British  roar  of 
exultation  was  terrific,  and  the  mighty  clash 
of  arms  rent  the  air.  "  Many  flung  away  their 
tunics,"  writes  a  Yeomanry  Officer  with  Gen- 
eral Smith-Dorrien's  Division,  "  and  fought 
with  their  shirt  sleeves  rolled  up  above  the  elbow. 
Some  of  the  Hussars  and  Lancers  were  almost 
in  a  horizontal  position  on  the  off-side  of  their 
mounts  when  they  were  cutting  right  and  left 
with  bare  arms." 

Most  intimate  details  of  the  fighting  at  close 
quarters  are  given  by  another  officer.  "  I  shall 
never  forget,"  he  says,  "  how  one  splendidly- 
made  trooper  with  his  shirt  in  ribbons  actually 
stooped  so  low  from  his  saddle  as  to  snatch 
a  w^ounded  comrade  from  instant  death  at  the 
hands  of  a  powerful  German.  And  then,  hav- 
ing swung  the  man  right  round  to  the  near 
side,  he  made  him  hang  on  to  his  stirrup  leather 
whilst  he  lunged  his  sword  clean  through  the 
German's  neck  and  severed  his  windpipe  as 


54        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

cleanly  as  would  do  it  in  the  operating 

theater." 

And  here  is  another  incident :  "  A  young 
lancer,  certainly  not  more  than  twenty,  stripped 
of  tunic  and  shirt,  and  fighting  in  his  vest, 
charged  a  German  who  had  fired  on  a  wounded 
man,  and  pierced  him  to  the  heart.  Seizing  the 
German's  horse  as  he  fell,  he  exchanged  it  for 
his  own  which  had  got  badly  damaged.  Then, 
his  sword  sheathed  like  lightning,  he  swung 
round  and  shot  a  German  clean  through  the 
head  and  silenced  him  forever." 

The  soldiers'  letters  throb  with  such  stories, 
and  the  swiftness,  vigor,  and  power  of  expres- 
sion revealed  in  them  is  astonishing.  Most  of 
them  were  written  under  withering  fire,  some 
scribbled  even  when  in  the  saddle,  or  when 
the  writers  were  in  a  state  of  utter  exhaustion 
at  the  end  of  a  nerve-shattering  day.  "  *  Hell 
with  the  lid  off '  describes  what  we  are  going 
through,"  one  of  the  12th  Lancers  says  of  it. 
But  the  men  never  lose  spirit.  Even  after 
eighteen  or  nineteen  hours  in  the  saddle  they 
still  have  a  kindly,  cheering  message  to  write 
home,  and  a  jocular  metaphor  to  hit  off  the  situ- 
ation. "  We  are  going  on  all  right,"  concludes 
Corporal  G.  W.  Cooper,  i6th  Lancers;  "but 
still  it  isn't  exactly  what  you'd  call  playing  bil- 
liards at  the  club." 


WITH  THE  HIGHLANDERS        55 


VI 
WITH  THE  HIGHLANDERS 

THE  Highlanders  have  been  great  favor- 
ites in  France.  Their  gaiety,  humor 
and  inexhaustible  spirits  under  the 
most  trying  conditions  have  captivated  every- 
body. Through  the  villages  on  their  route 
these  brawny  fellows  march  with  their  pipers 
to  the  proud  lilt  of  "  The  Barren  Rocks  of 
Aden''  and  "The  Cock  o'  the  North,"  fine 
marching  tunes  that  in  turn  give  place  to  the 
regimental  voices  while  the  pipers  are  recov- 
ering their  breath.  "  It's  a  long  way  to  In- 
veraray "  is  the  Scotch  variant  of  the  new  army 
song,  but  the  Scots  have  not  altogether  aban- 
doned their  own  marching  airs,  and  it  is  a 
stirring  thing  to  hear  the  chorus  of  "  The  Nut- 
Brown  Maiden,"  for  instance,  sung  in  the 
Gaelic  tongue  as  these  kilted  soldiers  swing  for- 
ward on  the  long  white  roads  of  France. 

A  charming  little  letter  published  in  The 
Times  tells  how  the  Highlanders  and  their 
pipers  turned  Melun  into  a  "  little  Scotland  " 


56        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

for  a  week,  and  the  enthusiastic  writer  con- 
tributes some  verses  for  a  suggested  new  reel, 
of  which  the  following  have  a  sly  allusion  to 
the  Kaiser's  order  for  the  extermination  of 
General  French's  "  contemptible  little  army  "  : 

"What!     Wad  ye  stop  the  pipers? 

Nay,  'tis  ower  soon ! 
Dance,  since  ye're  dancing,  William, 

Dance,  ye  puir  loon  ! 
Dance  till  ye're  dizzy,  William, 

Dance  till  ye  swoon ! 
Dance  till  ye're  deid,  my  laddie! 

We  play  the  tune !  " 

This  is  all  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  Highland 
soldiers.  A  Frenchman,  writing  to  a  friend 
in  London  goes  into  ecstasies  over  the  behavior 
of  the  Scots  in  France,  and  says  that  at  one 
railway  station  he  saw  two  wounded  High- 
landers "  dancing  a  Scotch  reel  which  made 
the  crowd  fairly  shriek  with  admiration." 
Nothing  can  subdue  these  Highlanders'  spirits. 
They  go  into  action,  as  has  already  been  said, 
just  as  if  it  were  a  picnic,  and  here  is  a  picture 
of  life  in  the  trenches  at  the  time  of  the  fierce 
battle  of  Mons.  It  is  related  by  a  corporal 
of  the  Black  Watch.  "The  Germans,"  he 
states,  "  were  just  as  thick  as  the  Hielan' 
heather,  and  by  weight  of  numbers  (something 
like  twenty-five  to  one)  tried  to  force  us  back. 
But  we  had  our  orders  and  not  a  man  flinched. 


WITH  THE  HIGHLANDERS       57 

We  just  stuck  there  while  the  shells  were  burst- 
ing about  us,  and  in  the  very  thick  of  it  we 
kept  on  singing  Harry  Lauder's  latest.  It  was 
terrible,  but  it  was  grand  —  peppering  away 
at  them  to  the  tune  of  *  Roamin'  in  the 
Gloamin'  '  and  *  The  Lass  o'  Killiecrankie.' 
It's  many  a  song  about  the  lassies  we  sang  in 
that  *  smoker '   wi'   the  Germans." 

According  to  another  Highlander  "  those 
men  who  couldn't  sing  very  well  just  whistled, 
and  those  who  couldn't  whistle  talked  about 
football  and  joked  with  each  other.  It  might 
have  been  a  sham  fight  the  way  the  Gordons 
took  it."  With  this  memory  of  their  un- 
daunted gaiety  it  is  sad  to  think  how  the  Gor- 
dons were  cut  up  in  that  encounter.  Their 
losses  were  terrible.  "  God  help  them !  "  ex- 
claims one  writer.  "  Theirs  was  the  finest 
regiment  a  man  could  see." 

But  that  was  in  the  dark  days  of  the  long 
retreat,  when  the  Highlanders,  heedless  of 
their  own  safety,  hung  on  to  their  positions 
often  in  spite  of  the  orders  to  retire,  and 
avenged  their  own  losses  ten-fold  by  their  pun- 
ishment of  the  enemy.  Private  Smiley,  of  the 
Gordons,  describing  the  German  attacks,  speaks 
of  the  devastating  effects  of  the  British  fire. 
"  Poor  devils !  "  he  writes  of  the  German  in- 
fantry.    "  They    advanced    in    companies    of 


58        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

quite  150  men  in  files  five  deep,  and  our  rifle 
has  a  flat  trajectory  up  to  600  yards.  Guess 
the  result.  We  could  steady  our  rifles  on  the 
trench  and  take  deliberate  aim.  The  first  com- 
pany were  mown  down  by  a  volley  at  700 
yards,  and  in  their  insane  formation  every 
bullet  was  almost  sure  to  find  two  billets.  The 
other  companies  kept  advancing  very  slowly, 
using  their  dead  comrades  as  cover,  but  they 
had  absolutely  no  chance.  .  .  .  Yet  what  a 
pitiful  handful  we  were  against  such  a  host!  " 
The  fighting  went  on  all  through  the  night 
and  again  next  morning,  and  the  British  force 
was  compelled  to  retreat.  In  the  dark.  Pri- 
vate Smiley,  who  was  w^ounded,  lost  his  regi- 
ment, and  was  picked  up  by  a  battery  of  the 
Royal  Field  Artillery  who  gave  him  a  lift. 
But  he  didn't  rest  long,  he  says,  for  "  I'm 
damned  if  they  didn't  go  into  action  ten  min- 
utes afterwards  with  me  on  one  of  the  guns." 
Some  fine  exploits  are  also  given  to  the 
credit  of  the  Black  W^atch.  They,  too,  were 
in  the  thick  of  it  at  Mons  — "  fighting  like  gen- 
tlemen," as  one  of  them  puts  it  —  and  the  Gor- 
dons and  Argyll  and  Sutherlands  also  suffered 
severely.  In  fact,  the  Highland  regiments  ap- 
pear to  have  been  singled  out  by  the  Germans 
as  the  object  of  their  fiercest  attacks,  and  all 
the  way  down  to  the  Aisne  they  have  borne 


WITH  THE  HIGHLANDERS        59 

the  brunt  of  the  fighting.  Private  Fair- 
weather,  of  the  Black  Watch,  gives  this  ac- 
count of  an  engagement  on  the  Aisne:  "  The 
Guards  went  up  first  and  then  the  Camerons, 
both  having  to  retire.  Ahhough  we  had 
watched  the  awful  slaughter  in  these  regiments, 
when  it  was  our  turn  we  went  off  with  a 
cheer  across  1,500  yards  of  open  country.  The 
shelling  was  terrific  and  the  air  was  full  of 
the  screams  of  shrapnel.  Only  a  few  of  us 
got  up  to  200  yards  of  the  Germans.  Then 
with  a  yell  we  went  at  them.  The  air  whistled 
with  bullets,  and  it  was  then  my  shout  of 
*  42nd  forever! '  finished  with  a  different  kind 
of  yell.  Crack!  I  had  been  presented  with 
a  souvenir  in  my  knee.  I  lay  helpless  and  our 
fellows  retired  over  me.  Shrapnel  screamed 
all  around,  and  melinite  shells  made  the  earth 
shake.  I  bore  a  charmed  life.  A  bullet  went 
through  the  elbow  of  my  jacket,  another 
through  my  equipment,  and  a  piece  of  shrapnel 
found  a  resting  place  in  a  tin  of  bully  beef 
which  was  on  my  back.  I  was  picked  up 
eventually  during  the  night,  nearly  dead  from 
loss  of  blood." 

Perhaps  the  most  dashing  and  brilliant  epi- 
sode of  the  fighting  is  the  exploit  of  the  Black 
Watch  at  the  battle  of  St.  Quentin,  in  which 
they  went  into  action  with  their  old  comrades, 


6o        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

the   Scots   Greys.     Not  content  with  the  or- 
dinary pace  at  which  a  bayonet  charge  can  be 

launched  against  the  enemy  these  impatient  : 

Highlanders   clutched  at  the  stirrup  leathers  j 

of  the  Greys,  and  plunged  into  the  midst  of  i 

the  Germans  side  by  side  with  the  galloping  1 
horsemen.     The  effect  was  startling,  and  those 
who  saw  it  declare  that  nothing  could  have 

withstood   the    terrible    onslaught.     "  Only   a  j 
Highland  regiment  could  have  attempted  such 

a  movement,"  said  an  admiring  English  sol-  | 
dier  who  watched  it,  and  the  terrible  gashes 
in  the  German  ranks  bore  tragic  testimony  to 

the  results  of  this  double  charge.     The  same  i 

desperate  maneuver,  it  may  be  recalled,  was  ' 
carried  out  at  Waterloo  and  is  the  subject  of 

a  striking  and  dramatic  battle  picture.  j 

Though   all   the   letters    from,   men   in   the  | 

Highland  regiments  speak  contemptuously  of  j 

the  rifle  fire  of  the  Germans,  they  admit  that  ] 

in     quantity,     at     least,     it     is     substantial.  I 

"  They    just   poured    lead    in   tons    into    our  j 

trenches,"  writes  one,  "  but,  man,  if  we  fired  j 

like  yon  they'd  put  us  in  jail."     The  German  j 

artillery,  however,  is  described  as  "no  canny."  ^ 

The  shells  shrieked  and  tore  up  the  earth  all  ; 

around   the   Highlanders,   and  accounted   for  j 

practically  all  their  losses.  ■ 

Narrow  escapes  were  numerous.     An  Argyll  I 


WITH  THE  HIGHLANDERS       6i 

and  Sutherland  Highlander  got  his  kilt  pierced 
eight  times  by  shrapnel,  one  of  the  Black 
Watch  had  his  cap  shot  off,  and  while  another 
was  handling  a  tin  of  jam  a  bullet  went  clean 
into  the  tin.  Jocular  allusions  were  made  to 
these  incidents,  and  somebody  suggested  label- 
ing the  tin  "  Made  in  Germany." 

Even  the  most  grim  incidents  of  the  war 
are  lit  up  by  some  humorous  or  pathetic  pas- 
sage which  illustrates  the  fine  spirits  and  even 
finer  sympathies  of  the  Highlanders.  Lance- 
Corporal  Edmondson,  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Lancers,  mentions  the  case  of  two  men  of  the 
Argyll  and  Sutherlands,  who  were  cut  off  from 
their  regiment.  One  was  badly  wounded,  but 
his  comrade  refused  to  leave  him,  and  in  a 
district  overrun  by  Germans,  they  had  to  exist 
for  four  days  on  half-a-dozen  biscuits. 

"  But  how  did  you  manage  to  do  it  ?  "  the 
unwounded  man  was  asked,  when  they  were 
picked  up. 

*'  Oh,  fine,"  he  answered. 

"  How  about  yourself,  I  mean  ?  "  the  ques- 
tioner persisted  in  asking. 

"  Oh,  shut  up,"  said  the  Highlander. 

The  truth  is  he  had  gone  without  food  all  the 
time  in  order  that  his  comrade  might  not  want. 

Then  there  is  a  story  from  Valenciennes  of  a 
poor  scared  woman  who  rushed  frantically  into 


62        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

the  road  as  the  British  troops  entered  the  town. 
She  had  two  sHght  cuts  on  the  arm,  and  was 
almost  naked  —  the  result  of  German  sav- 
agery. When  she  saw  the  soldiers  she  shrank 
back  in  fear  and  confusion,  whereupon  one 
of  the  Highlanders,  quick  to  see  her  plight, 
tore  off  his  kilt,  ripped  it  in  half,  and  wrapped 
a  portion  around  her.  She  sobbed  for  grati- 
tude at  this  kindly  thought  and  tried  to  thank 
him,  but  before  she  could  do  so  the  Scot, 
twisting  the  other  half  of  the  kilt  about  him- 
self to  the  amusement  of  his  comrades,  was 
swinging  far  along  the  road  with  his  regiment. 

This  is  not  the  only  Scot  who  has  lost  his 
kilt  in  the  war.  One  of  the  Royal  Engineers 
gives  a  comic  picture  of  a  Highlander  wdio 
appears  to  have  lost  nearly  every  article  of 
clothing  he  left  home  in.  When  last  seen  by 
this  letter  writer  he  was  resplendent  in  a 
Guardsman's  tunic,  the  red  breeches  of  a 
Frenchman,  a  pair  of  Belgian  infantry  boots, 
and  his  own  Glengarry !  "  And  when  he  wants 
to  look  particularly  smart,"  adds  the  Engineer, 
"  he  puts  on  a  Uhlan's  cloak  that  he  keeps 
handy !  " 

As  another  contribution  to  the  humor  of 
life  in  the  trenches  and,  incidentally,  to  the 
discussion  of  soldier  songs,  it  is  worth  w^hile 
quoting  from  a  letter  signed  "  H.  L.,"  in  The 


WITH  THE  HIGHLANDERS       63 

Times,  this  specimen  verse  of  the  sort  of  lyric 
that  delights  Tommy  Atkins.  It  is  the  work 
of  a  Sergeant  of  the  Gordon  Highlanders,  and 
as  the  marching  song  in  high  favor  at  Alder- 
shot,  must  come  as  a  shock  to  the  ideals  of 
would-be  army  laureates : 

"  Send  out  the  Army  and  Navy, 
Send  out  the  rank  and  file, 

(Have  a  banana!) 
Send  out  the  brave  Territorials, 
They  easily  can  run  a  mile. 

(I  don't  think!) 
Send  out  the  boys'  and  the  girls'  brigade, 
They  will  keep  old  England  free : 
Send  out  my  mother,  my  sister,  and  my  brother, 
But  for  goodness  sake  don't  send  me." 

It  is  doggerel,  of  course,  but  it  has  a  certain 
cleverness  as  a  satire  on  the  music-hall  song 
of  the  day,  and  the  Gordons  carried  it  gaily 
with  them  to  their  battlefields,  blending  it  in 
that  odd  mixture  of  humor  and  tragedy  that 
makes  up  the  soldier's  life.  The  bravest,  it  is 
truly  said,  are  always  the  happiest,  and  of  the 
happy  warriors  who  have  fallen  in  this  cam- 
paign one  must  be  remembered  here  in  this 
little  book  of  British  heroism.  He  died 
bravely  on  the  hill  of  Jouarre,  near  La  Ferte, 
and  his  comrades  buried  him  where  he  fell. 
On  a  little  wooden  cross  are  inscribed  the  sim- 
ple words,  "  T.  Campbell,  Seaforths." 


64        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


T 


VII 

THE  INTREPID  IRISH 

*'nn HERE'S  been  a  divil  av  lot  av  talk 
about  Irish  disunion,"  says  Mr.  Doo- 
ley  somewhere,  "but  if  there's 
foightin'  to  be  done  it's  the  bhoys  that'll  let 
nobody  else  thread  on  the  Union  Jack."  That 
is  the  Irish  temperament  all  over,  and  in  these 
days  when  history  is  being  written  in  lightning 
flashes  the  rally  of  Ireland  to  the  old  flag  is 
inspiring,  but  not  surprising. 

Political  cynics  have  always  said  that  Eng- 
land's difficulty  would  be  Ireland's  opportunity, 
but  they  did  not  reckon  with  the  paradoxical 
character  of  the  Irish  people.  England's  diffi- 
culty has  indeed  been  Ireland's  opportunity  — 
the  opportunity  of  displaying  that  generous  na- 
ture which  has  already  contributed  thousands 
of  men  to  the  Expeditionary  Force,  and  is 
mustering  tens  of  thousands  more  under  the 
patriotic  stimulus  of  those  old  political  enemies, 
Mr.  John  Redmond  and  Sir  Edward  Carson. 


THE  INTREPID  IRISH  65 

The  civil  war  is  "  put  off,"  as  one  Irish  soldier 
expresses  it;  old  enmities  are  laid  aside  and 
Orange  and  Green  are  fighting  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  on  old  battlefields  whose  names  are 
writ  in  glory  upon  the  colors. 

No  more  cheerful  regiments  than  the  Irish 
are  to  be  found  in  the  firing  line.  Their 
humor  in  the  trenches,  their  love  of  songs,  and 
their  dash  in  action  are  manifested  in  all  their 
letters.  An  English  soldier,  writing  home, 
says  that  even  in  the  midst  of  a  bayonet  charge 
an  Irishman  can  always  raise  a  laugh.  "  Look 
at  thim  divils  retratin'  w^ith  their  backs  facin' 
us,"  was  an  Irish  remark  about  the  Germans 
that  made  his  fellows  roar.  And  when  the 
Fusiliers  heard  the  story  of  the  Kaiser's  lucky 
shamrock,  one  of  them  said:  "Sure,  an'  it'll 
be  moighty  lucky  for  him  if  he  doesn't  lose 
it  " ;  adding  to  one  of  three  comrades,  "  There'll 
be  a  leaf  apiece  for  us,  Hinissey,  when  we  get 
to  Berlin." 

In  the  fighting  the  Irish  have  done  big 
things  and  their  dash  and  courage  have  filled 
their  British  and  French  comrades  with  ad- 
miration. Referring  to  the  first  action  in 
which  the  Irish  Guards  took  part,  and  the 
smart  businesslike  way  in  which  they  cut  up 
the  Germans,  Private  Heffernan,  Royal  Irish 
Fusiliers,  says  they  had  a  great  reception  as 


66        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

they  marched  back  into  the  Hnes  :  "  Of  course, 
we  all  gave  them  a  cheer,  but  it  would  have 
done  your  heart  good  to  see  the  Frenchmen 
(who  had  a  good  view  of  the  fighting)  stand- 
ing up  in  their  trenches  and  shouting  like  mad 
as  the  Guards  passed  by.  The  poor  chaps 
didn't  like  the  idea  that  it  was  their  first  time 
in  action,  and  were  shy  about  the  fuss  made 
of  them :  and  there  was  many  a  row  in  camp 
that  night  over  men  saying  fine  things  and  re- 
minding them  of  their  brand  new  battle  hon- 
ors." * 

A  fine  story  is  told  of  the  heroism  of  two 
Irish  Dragoons  by  a  trooper  of  that  gallant 
regiment.  "  One  of  our  men,"  he  says,  '*  car- 
ried a  wounded  comrade  to  a  friendly  farm- 
house under  heavy  fire,  and  when  the  retreat 
was  ordered  both  were  cut  off.  A  patrol  of 
a  dozen  Uhlans  found  them  there  and  ordered 
them  to  surrender,  but  they  refused,  and,  tack- 
ling the  Germans  from  behind  a  barricade  of 
furniture,  killed  or  wounded  half  of  them. 
The  others  then  brought  up  a  machine  gun 
and  threatened  the  destruction  of  the  farm: 
but  the  two  dragoons,  remembering  the  kind- 

*  The  Irish  Guards  were  created  entirely  on  the  in- 
itiative of  Queen  Victoria,  and  as  a  recognition  of  the 
fine  achievements  of  "Her  brave  Irish"  in  the  South 
African  War. 


THE  INTREPID  IRISH  ^j 

ness  of  the  farm  owners  and  unwilling  to 
bring  ruin  and  disaster  upon  them,  rushed  from 
the  house  in  the  wild  hope  of  tackling  the 
gun.  The  moment  they  crossed  the  doorway 
they  fell  riddled  wuth  bullets."  Another  story 
of  the  Irish  Dragoons  is  told  by  Trooper  P 
Ryan.  One  of  the  Berkshires  had  been  cut  off 
from  his  regiment  while  lingering  behind  to 
bid  a  dying  chum  good-by,  when  he  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  patrol  of  Uhlans.  A  troop  of 
the  Irish  Dragoons  asked  leave  of  their  officer 
to  rescue  the  man,  and  sweeping  down  on  the 
Germans,  quickly  scattered  them.  But  they 
were  too  late.     The  plucky  Berkshire  man  had 

gone  under,"  taking  three  Germans  with  him. 

We  buried  him  with  his  chum  by  the  way- 
side," adds  Trooper  Ryan.  *'  Partings  of  this 
kind  are  sad,  but  they  are  everyday  occur- 
rences in  war,  and  you  just  have  to  get  used  to 
them." 

The  Dragoons  also  went  to  the  assistance  of 
a  man  of  the  Irish  Rifles  who,  wounded  him- 
self, was  yet  kneeling  beside  a  fallen  comrade 
of  the  Gloucester  Regiment,  and  gamely  firing 
to  keep  the  enemy  off.  The  Dragoons  found 
both  men  thoroughly  worn  out,  but  urgency 
required  the  regiment  to  take  up  another  posi- 
tion, and  the  wounded  men  had  to  be  left  to 
the  chance  of  being  picked  up  by  the   Red 


68        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

Cross  corps.  "  They  knew  that,"  says  the 
trooper  who  relates  the  incident,  "  and  weren't 
the  men  to  expect  the  general  safety  to  be 
risked  for  them.  *  Never  mind,'  said  the 
young  Irishman,  '  shure  the  sisters  '11  pick  us 
up  all  right,  an'  if  they  don't  —  well,  we've 
only  once  to  die,  an'  it's  the  grand  fight  we've 
had  annyhow.'  " 

One  of  the  most  stirring  exploits  of  the  war 
—  equaled  only  by  the  devotion  and  self-sac- 
rifice of  the  Royal  Engineers  in  the  fight  for 
the  bridge  —  is  that  of  the  Irish  Fusiliers  in 
saving  another  regiment  from  annihilation. 
The  regiment  w^as  in  a  distant  and  exposed  po- 
sition, and  a  message  had  to  be  sent  ordering 
its  retirement.  This  could  only  be  accom- 
plished by  despatching  a  messenger,  and  the 
fusiliers  were  asked  for  volunteers.  Every 
man  offered  himself,  though  all  knew  what  it 
meant  to  cross  that  stretch  of  open  country 
raked  with  rifle  fire.  They  tossed  for  the 
honor,  and  the  first  man  to  start-off  with  the 
message  was  an  awkward  shock-headed  chap 
who,  the  narrator  says,  didn't  impress  by  his 
appearance.  Into  the  blinding  hail  of  bullets 
he  dashed,  and  cleared  the  first  hundred  yards 
without  mishap.  In  the  second  lap  he  fell 
wounded,  but  struggled  to  his  feet  and  rushed 
on  till  he  was  hit  a  second  time  and  collapsed. 


THE  INTREPID  IRISH  69 

One  man  rushed  to  his  assistance  and  another 
to  bear  the  message.  The  first  reached  the 
wounded  man  and  started  to  carry  him  in,  but 
when  nearing  the  trenches  and  their  cheering 
comrades,  both  fell  dead.  The  third  man  had 
by  this  time  got  well  on  his  way,  and  was  al- 
most within  reach  of  the  endangered  regiment 
when  he,  too,  was  hit.  Half-a-dozen  men  ran 
out  to  bring  him  in,  and  the  whole  lot  of  this 
rescuing  party  were  shot  down,  but  the 
wounded  fusilier  managed  to  crawl  to  the 
trenches  and  deliver  the  order.  The  regiment 
fell  back  into  safety  and  the  situation  was 
saved,  but  the  message  arrived  none  too  soon, 
and  the  gallant  Irish  Fusiliers  certainly  saved 
one  battalion  from  extinction. 

In  one  fierce  little  fight  the  Munster  Fusiliers 
(the  "Dirty  Shirts")  had  to  prevent  them- 
selves from  being  cut  off,  and  in  a  desperate 
effort  to  capture  the  whole  regiment  the  Ger- 
mans launched  cavalry,  infantry  and  artillery 
upon  them.  "  The  air  was  thick  with  noises," 
.says  one  of  the  Munsters  in  telling  the  story, 
"  men  shouting,  waving  swords,  and  blazing 
away  at  us  like  blue  murder.  But  our  lads 
stood  up  to  them  without  the  least  taste  of  fear, 
and  gave  them  the  bayonet  and  the  bullet  in 
fine  style.  They  crowded  upon  us  in  tremen- 
dous numbers,  but  though  it  was  hell's  own 


70        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR  ; 

work  we  wouldn't  surrender,  and  they  had  at  ] 

last  to  leave  us.     I  got  a  sword  thrust  in  the  \ 

ribs,  and  then  a  bullet  in  me,  and  went  under  ■ 

for  a  time,  but  when  the  mist  cleared  from  , 

my  eyes  I  could  see  the  boys  cutting  up  the  i 

Germans   entirely."     The  losses  were  heavy,  ; 

and  the  comment  was  made  in  camp  that  the  ! 

Germans  had  cleaned  up  the  "  Dirty  Shirts  "  \ 

for  once.     "  Well,"  said  an  indignant  Fusilier,  \ 

"  it  was  a  moighty  expensive  washin'  for  them  j 

annyway."  i 

How    Private    Parker    of   the    Inniskilling  ' 
Fusiliers  escaped  from  four  Uhlans  who  had  j 
taken  him  prisoner  is  an  example  of  personal  i 
daring.     His  captors  marched  him  off  between  \ 
them  till  they  came  to  a  narrow  lane  where  i 
the  horsemen  could  walk  only  in  single  file  — 
three  in   front  of  him  and  one  behind.     He  | 
determined  to  make  a  bid  for  liberty.     Duck-  \ 
ing  under  the  rear  horse  he  seized  his  rifle,  \ 
shot  the  Uhlan,  and  disappeared  in  the  dark- 
ness.    For  days  he  lay  concealed,  and  on  one  j 
occasion  German  searchers  entered  the  room 
in  which  he  was  hidden,  yet  failed  to  find  him.  ; 

Private    Court,    2nd    Royal    Scots,    pays    a  ; 

tribute  to  the  gallantry  of  the  Connaught  Ran-  i 

gers,  and  tells  how  they  saved  six  guns  which  j 

had  been  taken  by  the  enemy.     The  sight  of  ] 

British  guns  in  German  hands  was  too  much  ' 


THE  INTREPID  IRISH  71 

for  the  temper  of  the  Connaughts,  who  came 
on  with  an  irresistible  charge,  compelling  the 
guns  to  be  abandoned,  and  enabling  the  Royal 
Field  Artillery  to  dash  in  and  drag  them  out 
of  danger.  Another  soldier  relates  that  the 
Connaughts  were  trapped  by  a  German  abuse 
of  the  white  flag  and  suffered  badly  when,  all 
unsuspecting,  they  went  to  take  over  their  pris- 
oners; but  they  left  their  mark  on  the  enemy 
on  that  occasion,  and  "  when  the  Connaught 
blood  is  up,"  as  one  of  the  Rangers  expresses 
it,  "  it's  a  nasty  job  to  be  up  agin  it." 

Stories  of  Irish  daring  might  be  multiplied, 
but  these  are  sufficient  to  show  that  the  old 
regiments  are  still  full  of  the  fighting  spirit. 
"  Now  boys,"  one  of  their  non-commissioned 
officers  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  no  surrender 
for  us !  Ye've  got  yer  rifles,  and  yer  baynits, 
and  yer  butts,  and  after  that,  ye  divils,  there's 
yer  fists."  A  drummer  of  the  Irish  Fusiliers 
who  had  lost  his  regiment,  met  another  soldier 
on  the  road  and  begged  for  the  loan  of  his 
rifle  "  just  to  get  a  last  pop  at  the  divils."  Sir 
John  French  is  himself  of  Irish  parentage  — 
Roscommon  and  Galway  claim  him  —  and 
there  is  no  more  ardent  or  cheerful  fighter  in 
the  British  army. 

"  It  beats  Banagher,"  says  a  jocular  private 
in  the  Royal  Irish,  ''  how  these  Germans  always 


^2.        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


disturb  us  at  meal  times.  I  suppose  it's  just 
the  smell  of  the  bacon  that  they're  after,  and 
Rafferty  says  we  can't  be  too  careful  where 
we  stow  the  mercies."  From  all  accounts  the 
Germans  taken  prisoner  are  about  as  ill-fed  as 
they  are  ill-informed.  Private  Harkness  of 
the  same  regiment,  says  the  captives'  first  need 
is  food  and  then  information.  One  of  them 
asked  him  why  the  Irish  weren't  fighting  in 
their  own  civil  war.  "  Faith,"  said  he,  "  this 
is  the  only  war  we  know  about  for  the  time 
being,  and  there's  mighty  little  that's  civil  about 
it  with  the  way  you're  behaving  yourselves." 
The  German  looked  gloomy,  and,  added  Hark- 
ness, "  I  don't  think  he  liked  a  plain  Irishman's 
way  of  putting  things." 


"A  FIRST-CLASS  FIGHTING  MAN"     73 


VIII 
"  A  FIRST-CLASS  FIGHTING  MAN  '' 


I 


**  f  F  ever  I  come  back,  and  anybody  at  home 
talks  to  me  about  the  glory  of  war,  I 

shall  be  d d  rude  to  him."     That  is 

an  extract  from  the  letter  of  an  officer  who 
has  seen  too  much  of  the  grim  and  ugly  side 
of  the  campaign  to  find  any  romance  in  it. 
Yet  out  of  all  the  horror  there  emerge  incidents 
of  conspicuous  bravery  that  strike  across  the 
imagination  like  sunbeams,  and  cast  a  glow 
even  in  the  darkest  corners  of  the  stricken  field. 
Valor  is  neither  a  philosophy  nor  a  calcula- 
tion. The  soldier  does  not  say  to  himself, 
"  Look  here,  Atkins, 

*  One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name.' " 

He  goes  into  the  business  of  war  determined 
to  get  it  over  as  quickly  as  possible,*  and  when 

*  Gunner  Batey,  Royal  Garrison  Artillery,  writes  of 
a  comrade.  Gunner  Spencer  Mann :     "  He  seems  in  his 


74        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

he  does  something  stupendous,  as  he  does 
nearly  ever  day,  it  is  just  because  the  thing 
has  to  be  done,  and  he  is  there  to  do  it. 
Tommy  Atkins  doesn't  stop  to  think  whether 
he  is  doing  a  brave  thing,  nor  does  he  wait 
for  orders  to  do  it;  he  just  sets  about  it  as  part 
of  the  day's  work,  and  looks  very  much  abashed 
if  anybody  applauds  him  for  it. 

For  instance,  there  is  a  man  in  the  Buffs 
(the  story  is  told  by  a  driver  of  the  Royal 
Marine  Artillery),  who  picked  up  a  wounded 
comrade  and  carried  him  for  more  than  a  mile 
under  a  vicious  German  fire  that  was  exter- 
minating nearly  everything.  It  was  a  fine  act 
of  heroism.  "  Yet  if  anybody  were  to  sug- 
gest the  V.C.  he'd  break  his  jaw,"  says  the 
writer,  "  and  as  he's  a  man  with  a  4.7  punch 
the  men  of  his  regiment  keep  very  quiet  about 
it" 

Some  fine  exploits  are  recorded  of  the  Ar- 
tillery. When  the  Munster  Fusiliers  were  sur- 
rounded in  one  extended  engagement  a  driver 
of  the  R.F.A.  named  Pledge,  who  was  shut 
up  with  them,  was  asked  to  "  cut  through  " 
and  get  the  assistance  of  the  Artillery.  Lance- 
Corporal  John  McMillan,  Black  Watch,  thus 

glory  during  the  fighting.  He  fears  nothing,  and  is  al- 
ways shouting,  '  Into  them,  lads :  the  sooner  we  get 
through,  the  sooner  we'll  get  home.' " 


"A  FIRST-CLASS  FIGHTING  MAN"     75 

describes  what  happened :  "  Pledge  mounted 
a  horse  and  dashed  through  the  German  Hnes. 
His  horse  was  brought  to  the  ground,  and,  as 
we  afterwards  discovered,  he  sustained  severe 
injuries  to  his  legs.  Nothing  daunted,  he  got 
his  horse  on  its  feet,  and  again  set  off  at  a 
great  pace.  To  get  to  the  artillery  he  had  to 
pass  down  a  narrow  road,  which  was  lined 
with  German  riflemen.  He  did  not  stop,  how- 
ever, but  dashed  through  without  being  hit  by 
a  single  bullet.  He  conveyed  the  message  to 
the  artillery,  which  tore  off  to  the  assistance  of 
the  Munsters,  and  saved  the  situation." 

The  saving  of  the  guns  is  always  an  operation 
that  calls  for  intrepidity,  and  many  exploits 
of  that  kind  are  related.  Lance-Corporal  Big- 
nell,  Ro3^al  Berks,  tells  how  he  saw  two  R.F.A. 
drivers  bring  a  gun  out  of  action  at  Mons. 
Shells  had  been  flying  round  the  position,  and 
the  gunners  had  been  killed,  whereupon  the 
two  drivers  wxnt  to  rescue  the  gun.  ''  It  was 
a  good  quarter  of  a  mile  away,"  says  the  wit- 
ness, "  yet  they  led  their  horses  calmly  through 
the  hail  of  shell  to  where  the  gun  stood.  Then 
one  man  held  the  horses  while  the  other  lim- 
bered up.  It  seemed  impossible  that  the  men 
could  live  through  the  German  fire,  and  from 
the  trenches  we  watched  them  with  great  anx- 
iety.    But  they  came  through  all  right,   and 


76        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

we  gave  them  a  tremendous  cheer  as  they 
brought  the  gun  in." 

Sir  John  French  in  one  of  his  despatches 
records  that  during  the  action  at  Le  Cateau  on 
August  26th  the  whole  of  the  officers  and  men 
of  one  of  the  British  batteries  had  been  killed 
of  wounded  with  the  exception  of  one  subaltern 
and  two  gunners.  These  continued  to  serve 
one  gun,  kept  up  a  sound  rate  of  lire,  and  came 
unhurt  from  the  battlefield. 

Another  daring  act  is  described  by  W.  E. 
Motley,  R.F.A.  "  Things  became  very  warm 
for  us,"  he  says,  "  when  the  Germans  found  the 
range.  In  fact  it  became  so  hot  that  an  order 
was  passed  to  abandon  the  guns  temporarily. 
This  is  the  time  when  our  men  don't  obey 
orders,  so  they  stuck  to  their  guns.  They 
ceased  their  fire  for  a  time.  The  enemy,  think- 
ing our  guns  were  out  of  action,  advanced  rap- 
idly. Then  was  the  time  our  men  proved  their 
worth.  They  absolutely  shattered  the  Ger- 
mans with  their  shells." 

Some  gallant  stories  are  told  of  the  Royal 
Engineers.  One  especially  thrilling,  is  given 
in  the  words  of  Darino,  a  lyrical  artist  of  the 
Comedie  Francaise,  who  joined  the  Cuirassiers, 
and  was  a  spectator  of  the  scene  he  describes. 
A  bridge  had  to  be  blown  up,  and  the  whole 
place  was  an  inferno  of  mitrailleuse  and  rifle 


"A  FIRST-CLASS  FIGHTING  MAN"     ^7 

fire.  ''  Into  this,"  he  relates,  ''  went  your  En- 
gineers. A  party  of  them  rushed  towards  the 
bridge,  and,  though  dropping  one  by  one,  were 
able  to  lay  the  charge  before  all  were  sacrificed. 
For  a  moment  we  waited.  Then  others  came. 
Down  towards  the  bridge  they  crept,  seeking 
what  cover  they  could  in  their  eagerness  to  get 
near  enough  to  light  the  fuse.  Ah!  it  was 
then  we  Frenchmen  witnessed  something  we 
shall  never  forget.  One  man  dashed  forward 
to  his  task  in  the  open,  only  to  fall  dead.  An- 
other, and  another,  and  another  followed  him, 
only  to  fall  like  his  comrade,  and  not  till  the 
twelfth  man  had  reached  the  fuse  did  the  at- 
tempt succeed.  As  the  bridge  blew  up  with 
a  mighty  roar,  we  looked  and  saw  that  the 
brave  twelfth  man  had  also  sacrificed  his  life." 

During  the  long  retreat  from  Mons  the  Mid- 
dlesex Regiment  got  into  an  awkward  plight, 
and  a  bridge  —  the  only  one  left  to  the  Ger- 
mans —  had  to  be  destroyed  to  protect  them. 
This  was  done  by  a  sergeant  of  the  Engineers, 
but  immediately  afterw^ards  his  own  head  was 
blown  away  by  a  German  shell.  "  The  brave 
fellow  certainly  saved  the  position,"  writes  one 
of  the  Middlesex  men,  "  for  if  the  Germans 
had  got  across  that  night  I'm  afraid  there  would 
have  been  very  few  of  us  left." 

Other  daring  incidents  may  be  told  briefly. 


78        T0M:MY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

One  of  the  liveliest  is  that  of  seven  men  of 
the  Worcesters,  who  were  told  they  could  "  go 
for  a  stroll."  While  loitering  along  the  road 
they  encountered  a  party  of  Germans,  and  cap- 
tured them  all  without  firing  a  shot.  "  We 
just  covered  them  with  our  rifles,"  writes  Pri- 
vate Styles ;  "  so  simple !  "  Sir  John  French 
relates  a  similar  exploit  of  an  officer  who,  while 
proceeding  along  the  road  in  charge  of  a  num- 
ber of  led  horses,  received  information  that 
there  were  some  of  the  enemy  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. Upon  seeing  them  he  gave  the  order 
to  charge,  whereupon  three  German  officers 
and  1 06  men  surrendered!  On  another  occa- 
sion a  portion  of  a  supply  column  was  cut  off 
by  a  detachment  of  German  cavalry  and  the 
officer  in  charge  was  summoned  to  surrender. 
He  refused,  and  starting  his  motors  off  at  full 
speed  dashed  safely  through. 

Hairbreadth  escapes  are  related  in  hundreds 
of  letters,  and  they  have  a  dramatic  quality 
that  makes  the  ineffectual  fires  of  imaginative 
fiction  burn  very  low.  Sergeant  E.  W.  Tur- 
ner, West  Kents,  writes  to  his  sweetheart : 
"  The  bullet  that  w^ounded  me  at  Mons  went 
into  one  breast  pocket  and  came  out  of  the 
other,  and  in  its  course  passed  through  your 
photo."  Private  G.  Ryder  vouches  for  this: 
*'  We  were  having  what  you  might  call  a  dainty 


"A  FIRST-CLASS  FIGHTING  MAN"     79 

afternoon  tea  in  the  trenches  under  shell  fire. 
The  mugs  were  passed  round  with  the  biscuits 
and  the  '  bully '  as  best  they  could  by  the  mess 
orderlies,  but  it  was  hard  work  messing  through 
without  getting  more  than  we  wanted.  My 
next-door  neighbor,  so  to  speak,  got  a  shrapnel 
bullet  in  his  tin,  and  another  two  doors  ofif  had 
his  biscuit  shot  out  of  his  hand."  Lieutenant 
A.  C.  Johnstone,  the  Hants  county  cricketer, 
after  escaping  other  bullets  and  shells  which 
were  dancing  around  him,  was  hit  over  the 
heart  by  a  spent  bullet,  which  on  reaching  hos- 
pital he  found  in  his  left-hand  breast  pocket. 
Private  Plant,  Manchester  Regiment,  had  a 
cigarette  shot  out  of  his  mouth,  and  a  comrade 
got  a  bullet  into  his  tin  of  bully  beef.  "  It 
saves  the  trouble  of  opening  it,"  was  his  face- 
tious remark. 

One  of  the  Royal  Scots  Fusiliers  was  saved 
by  a  cartridge  clip.  He  felt  the  shock  and 
thought  he  had  been  hit,  but  the  bullet  was 
diverted  by  the  impact  owing  to  a  loose  cart- 
ridge. Had  it  been  struck  higher  up  all  the 
cartridges  might  have  exploded.  Another  let- 
ter mentions  a  case  where  a  man  got  two  bul- 
lets ;  one  struck  his  cartridge  belt,  and  the  other 
entered  his  sleeve  and  passed  through  his 
trousers  as  far  as  the  knee,  without  even 
scratching  him.     Drummer  E.  O'Brien,  South 


8o        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

Lancashires,  had  his  bugle  and  piccolo  smashed, 
his  cap  carried  away  by  a  bullet,  and  another 
bullet  through  his  coat  before  he  was  finally 
struck  by  a  piece  of  shrapnel  which  injured  his 
ankle;  and  another  soldier  records  thus  his 
adventures  under  fire :  ( i )  Shell  hit  and  shat- 
tered my  rifle;  (2)  Cap  shot  off  my  head;  (3) 
Bullet  in  muscle  of  right  arm.  ''  But  never 
mind,  my  dear,"  he  comments,  "  I  had  a  good 
run  for  my  money."  Staff-Sergeant  J.  W. 
Butler,  1st  Lincolns,  was  saved  by  a  paper  pad 
in  his  pocket  book;  the  bullet  embedded  itself 
there. 

Sapper  McKenny,  Royal  Engineers,  records 
the  unique  experience  of  a  comrade  whose  cap 
was  shot  off  so  neatly  that  the  bullet  left  a 
groove  in  his  hair  just  like  a  barber's  parting! 
He  thinks  the  German  who  fired  the  shot  is 
probably  a  London  hairdresser. 

Private  J.  Drury,  3rd  Coldstream  Guards, 
also  had  a  narrow  escape,  being  hit  by  a  bullet 
out  of  a  shell  between  the  left  eye  and  the  tem- 
ple. "  It  struck  there,"  he  relates,  "  but  one 
of  our  men  got  it  out  with  a  safety  pin,  and 
now  I've  got  it  in  my  pocket !  " 

The  amusing  escapade  of  "  wee  Hecky  Mac- 
AHster,"  is  told  by  Private  T.  McDougall,  of 
the  Highland  Light  Infantry.  Hecky  went 
into  a  burn  for  a  swim,  and  suddenly  found 


"A  FIRST-CLASS  FIGHTING  MAN"     8i 

the  attentions  of  the  Germans  were  directed  to 
him.  "  You  know  what  a  fine  mark  he  is  with 
his  red  head,"  says  the  writer  to  his  correspond- 
ent, and  so  they  just  hailed  bullets  at  him. 
Hecky,  however,  "  dooked  and  dooked,"  and 
emerged  from  his  bath  happy  but  breathless 
after  his  submarine  exploit. 

But  while  the  men  in  the  trenches  applaud 
all  the  brilliant  exploits  of  their  fellows,  and 
laugh  and  jest  over  the  lively  escapes  of  the 
lucky  ones  who,  in  Atkins's  phraseology,  "  only 
get  their  hair  parted,"  there  are  other  fine  deeds 
done  in  the  quiet  corners  of  hospitals  and  out 
of  the  glamour  of  battle  that  move  the  strong- 
est to  tears.  Such  is  the  incident  related  by 
a  member  of  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps, 
and  it  is  a  fitting  story  with  which  to  close  this 
chapter.  One  soldier,  mortally  wounded,  was 
being  attended  by  the  doctor  when  his  eye  fell 
on  a  dying  comrade.  "  See  to  him  first,  doc- 
tor," he  said  faintly,  "  that  poor  bloke's  going 
home;  he'll  be  home  before  me." 


82        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


IX 
OFFICERS  AND  GENTLEMEN 


H 


iif  T^  ^^^^  doing  his  duty  like  the  officer 
and  gentleman  he  was."  Could  any 
man  have  a  finer  epitaph?  It  is  an 
extract  from  a  letter  written  by  Private  J.  Fair- 
clough,  Yorkshire  Light  Infantry,  to  General 
A.  Wynn,  and  refers  to  the  death  of  the  Gen- 
eral's son,  Lieutenant  G.  O.  Wynn,  killed  in 
action  at  Landrecies.  The  letter  goes  on  to 
tell  of  the  affection  in  which  the  young  officer 
was  held  by  his  men,  and  this  story  of  courage 
and  unselfishness  in  the  field  is  the  simple  but 
faithful  tribute  of  a  devoted  soldier. 

The  war  has  brought  out  in  a  hundred  ways 
the  admirable  qualities  of  all  ranks  in  the 
British  Expeditionary  Force;  but  the  relations 
of  officers  and  men  have  never  been  revealed 
to  us  before  with  such  friendly  candor  and 
mutual  appreciation.  Over  and  over  again  in 
these  letters  from  the  front  the  soldiers  are 
found  extolling  the  bravery  and  self-sacrifice 


OFFICERS  AND  GENTLEMEN     83 

of  their  officers.  ''  No  praise  is  too  great  for 
them,"  "  our  officers  always  pull  us  through," 
''  they  know  their  business  to  the  finger-tips," 
*'  as  cool  as  cucumbers  under  fire,"  "  magnifi- 
cent examples,"  "  absolutely  fearless  in  the 
tightest  corners " —  these  are  some  of  the 
phrases  in  which  the  men  speak  proudly  of 
those  in  command. 

One  officer  in  the  ist  Hampshire  Regiment 
read  Marmion  aloud  in  the  trenches,  under  a 
fierce  maxim  fire,  to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  his 
men ;  and  they  "  play  cards  and  sing  popular 
songs  to  cheer  us  up,"  adds  another  genial 
soldier.  Not  that  the  men  suffer  much  from 
depression.  On  the  contrary,  the  commanders 
agree  that  their  spirits  have  been  splendid. 
''  Our  men  are  simply  wonderful,"  writes  an 
officer  in  the  cavalry  division ;  "  they  will  go 
through  anything." 

The  most  surprising  thing  in  the  soldiers' 
letters  is  that  they  should  show  such  an  extra- 
ordinary sense  of  the  dramatic.  They  throb 
with  emotion.  Take  this  account  of  the  death 
of  Captain  Berners  as  written  by  Corporal  S. 
Haley,  of  the  Brigade  of  Guards,  in  a  letter 
published  by  the  Star: 

"  Captain  Berners,  of  the  Irish,  was  the  life 
and  soul  of  our  lot.  When  shells  were  bursting 
over  our  heads  he  would  buck  us  up  with  his 


84        T0i\OlY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

humor  about  Brock's  displays  at  the  Palace. 
But  when  we  got  into  close  quarters  it  was  he 
who  was  in  the  thick  of  it.  And  didn't  he 
fight !  I  don't  know  how  he  got  knocked  over, 
but  one  of  our  fellows  told  me  he  died  a  game 
'un.  He  was  one  of  the  best  of  officers,  and 
there  is  not  a  Tommy  who  would  not  have 
gone  under  for  him." 

Among  those  who  fell  at  Cambrai  was  Cap- 
tain Clutterbuck,  of  the  King's  Own  (Lancas- 
ter) Regiment.  He  was  killed  while  leading  a 
bayonet  charge.  "  Just  like  Clutterbuck,"  wrote 
a  wounded  sergeant,  describing  the  officer's 
valor,  and  adding,  "  Lieutenant  Steele-Perkins 
also  died  one  of  the  grandest  deaths  a  British 
officer  could  wish  for.  He  w^as  lifted  out  of 
the  trenches  wounded  four  times,  but  protested 
and  crawled  back  again  till  he  was  mortally 
wounded." 

A  sergeant  of  the  Coldstream  Guards,  In  an 
account  given  to  the  Evening  Nezvs,  speaks  of 
the  death  of  Captain  Windsor  Cllve.  "  We 
were  sorry  to  lose  Captain  Clive,  who,"  he  says, 
"  was  a  real  gentleman  and  a  soldier.  He  was 
knocked  over  by  the  bursting  of  a  shell,  which 
maddened  our  fellows  I  can  tell  you."  The 
utmost  anger  was  also  aroused  in  the  men  of 
the  Lancaster  Regiment  by  the  death  of  Colonel 
Dykes.     *'  Good-by,  boys,"  he  exclaimed  as  he 


OFFICERS  AND  GENTLEMEN     85 

fell;  and  ''  By  God,  we  avenged  him,"  said  one 
of  the  "  boys  "  in  describing  the  fight. 

Many  instances  are  given  of  the  devotion 
shown  by  the  soldiers  in  saving  their  officers. 
Private  J.  Ferrie,  of  the  Royal  Scots  Fusiliers, 
wounded  while  defending  a  bridge  at  Lan- 
drecies,  tells  in  the  Glasgozv  Herald  how  Ser- 
geant Crop  rescued  Lieutenant  Stephens,  who 
had  been  badly  hit  and  must  otherwise  have  fal- 
len into  the  enemy's  hands :  "  The  sergeant 
took  the  wounded  lieutenant  on  his  back,  but  as 
he  could  not  crawl  across  the  bridge  so  encum- 
bered he  entered  the  water,  swam  the  canal, 
carried  the  wounded  man  out  of  line  of  fire,  and 
consigned  him  to  the  care  of  four  men  of  his 
own  company.  Of  a  platoon  of  fifty-eight 
which  w^as  set  to  guard  the  bridge  only  twenty- 
six  afterwards  answered  to  the  roll  call." 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  records 
of  the  tremendous  risks  taken  by  officers  to 
rescue  wounded  men.  Private  J.  Williams, 
Royal  Field  Artillery,  had  two  horses  shot 
under  him  and  was  badly  injured  "  when  the 
major  rushed  up  and  saved  me."  "  I  was 
lying  wounded  when  an  artillery  major  picked 
me  up  and  took  me  into  camp,  or  I  would 
never  have  seen  England  again,"  writes  Lance- 
Corporal  J.  Preston,  Lmiskilling  Fusiliers. 
Lieutenant  Sir  Alfred  Hickman  was  wounded 


86        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

in  the  shoulder  while  rescuing  a  wounded  ser- 
geant under  heavy  fire.  How  another  disabled 
man  was  brought  in  by  Lieutenant  Amos,  is 
told  by  Private  George  Pringle,  King's  Own 
Scottish  Borderers.  "  Several  of  us  volun- 
teered to  do  it,"  he  says,  "  but  the  lieutenant 
wouldn't  hear  of  anybody  else  taking  the  risk." 
Captain  McLean,  Argyll  and  Sutherland  High- 
landers, saved  one  of  his  men  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances. All  the  letters  are  full  of  praise 
of  the  officers  who,  in  the  words  of  Private 
James  Allan,  Gordon  Highlanders,  "  seem  to  be 
mainly  concerned  about  the  safety  of  their  men, 
and  indifferent  to  the  risks  they  take  upon 
themselves." 

Every  Tommy  knows  he  is  being  finely  led. 
The  officers  are  a  constant  source  of  inspiration 
and  encouragement.  Private  Campbell,  Irish 
Fusiliers,  writes : 

"  Lieutenant  O'Donovan  led  us  all  the  time, 
and  was  himself  just  where  the  battle  was 
hottest.  I  shall  never  forget  his  heroism.  I 
can  see  him  now,  revolver  in  one  hand  and 
sword  in  the  other.  He  certainly  accounted 
for  six  Germans  on  his  own,  and  inspired  us 
to  the  effort  of  our  lives.  He  has  only  been 
six  months  in  the  service,  is  little  more  than  a 
boy,  but  the  British  Army  doesn't  possess  a 
more  courageous  officer." 


OFFICERS  AND  GENTLEMEN     87 

The  Scottish  Borderers  speak  proudly  of 
Major  Leigh,  who  was  hit  during  a  bayonet 
charge,  and  Avhen  some  of  his  men  turned  to 
help  him,  shouted  "  Go  on,  boys ;  don't  mind 
me.''  A  Heutenant  of  A  Company,  ist  Chesh- 
ires :  "  I  only  know  his  nickname,"  says  Pri- 
vate D.  Schofield  —  though  wounded  in  two 
places,  rushed  to  help  a  man  in  distress,  brought 
him  in,  and  then  went  back  to  pick  up  his  fal- 
len sword.  Captain  Robert  Bruce,  heir  of 
Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh,  distinguished  him- 
self in  the  fighting  at  Mons.  One  of  the  Arg^dl 
and  Sutherland  Highlanders  relates  that,  in 
spite  of  wounds,  Captain  Bruce  took  command 
of  about  thirty  Highlanders  who  had  been  cut 
off,  and  throwing  away  his  sword,  seized  a  rifle 
from  one  of  the  killed,  and  fought  side  by  side 
w^ith  his  men. 

How  the  guns  were  saved  at  Solssons  is  told 
in  a  letter,  published  in  The  Times,  from  Ser- 
geant C.  Meades,  of  the  Berkshire  Regiment. 
"  We  had  the  order  to  abandon  our  guns,"  he 
writes,  ''  but  our  young  lieutenant  said,  '  No, 
boys;  we'll  never  let  the  Germans  take  a 
British  gun,'  and  with  a  cheer  we  fought  on. 
.  .  .  The  Staffords  came  up  and  reinforced  us. 
Then  I  got  hit,  and  retired.  .  .  .  But  the  guns 
were  saved.  When  the  last  of  the  six  got 
through  every  one  cheered  like  mad."    One  of 


88        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

the  West  Kents  also  described  the  daring  action 
of  an  officer.  In  the  midst  of  terrific  fire,  he 
walked  calmly  down  the  artillery  line,  putting 
our  lost  guns  out  of  action  so  that  they  would 
be  useless  to  the  Germans. 

Even  into  the  letters  describing  these  gallant 
incidents  there  creep  frequent  evidences  of 
Atkins's  unconquerable  spirit  and  sense  of  hu- 
mor. Private  R.  Toomey,  Royal  Army  Med- 
ical Corps,  tells  of  an  ofiicer  of  the  Royal  Irish 
shouting  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  Give  'em 
hell,  boys,  give  'em  hell ! "  He  had  been 
wounded  in  the  back  by  a  lump  of  shrapnel, 
but,  says  Toomey,  "  it  was  a  treat  to  hear  him 
shouting."  ' 

Most  of  these  accounts  refer  to  the  weary 
days  of  the  retirement  from  Mons  to  Com- 
piegne,  a  test  of  endurance  that  brought  out  the 
splendid  fighting  qualities  of  officers  and  men 
alike.  That  retirement  is  certainly  one  of  the 
most  masterly  achievements  of  a  war  already 
glorious  for  the  exploits  of  British  arms.  Day 
after  day  our  men  had  to  fall  back,  tired  and 
hungry,  exhausted  from  want  of  sleep,  yet 
fighting  magnificently,  and  only  impatient  to 
begin  the  attack.  This  eagerness  for  battle  is 
in  marked  contrast  to  the  spirit  of  the  German 
troops,  of  whom  there  is  abundant  evidence 
that  the  men  have  often  to  be  driven  into  action 


OFFICERS  AND  GENTLEMEN     89 

by  the  threatening  swords  and  revolvers  of 
their  officers. 

Francis  Ryan,  Northumberland  Fusiliers, 
tells  in  the  Scotsman  how  young  lieutenant 
Smith-Dorrien  pleaded  to  be  allowed  to  remain 
with  his  men  in  the  trenches  after  a  retirement 
had  been  ordered.  The  South  Staffordshires 
thought  they  were  "  getting  along  splendidly," 
says  one  of  the  men,  "  until  the  General  came 
and  told  us  we  must  retreat  or  we  would  be 
surrounded."  The  officer  spoke  very  encour- 
agingly, and  praised  his  men;  but  they  were 
all  so  unwilling  to  yield  ground  that  one  of 
them,  expressing  impatience,  made  a  comment 
he  would  never  have  thought  of  doing  in  peace 
time.     The  General  only  smiled. 

This  impatience  pervaded  all  arms  of  the 
service.  Some  of  the  Highland  regiments 
began  to  grow  grim  and  sullen,  in  spite  of  their 
play  with  the  bayonet;  and  the  Irish  corps 
became  "  unaisy."  It  was  then  that  the  of- 
ficers' fine  spirit  brought  reassurance.  This  is 
how  the  King's  Royal  Rifles  were  cheered  up, 
according  to  Private  Harman :  "  The  officers 
knew  we  were  disappointed,  because  on  the 
fifth  day  of  retirement  our  commanding  officer 
came  round  and  spoke  to  us.  *  Stick  it,  boys, 
stick  it,'  he  said ;  '  To-morrow  we  shall  go 
the  other  way  and  advance  —  Biff,  biff ! '    The 


90        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

way  he  said  '  Biff,  biff,'  delighted  the  men, 
and  after  that  we  frequently  heard  men  shout- 
ing, ^Biff,  biff!'" 

General  Sir  John  French,  who  is  a  great 
favorite  with  all  ranks,  and  spoken  of  with 
affection  by  every  Tommy,  makes  frequent 
tours  of  the  lines  and  has  a  cheery  word  for 
every  regiment.  Driver  W.  Cryer,  Royal  Field 
Artillery,  relates  in  the  Manchester  Guardian 
that,  at  St.  Quentin,  Sir  John  French  visited 
the  troops,  "  smiling  all  over  his  face,"  and 
explained  the  meaning  of  the  repeated  retire- 
ments. Up  to  then,  says  Cryer,  the  men  had 
almost  to  be  pulled  away  by  the  officers,  but 
after  the  General's  visit  they  fell  in  with  the 
general  scheme  with  great  cheerfulness. 

Summing  up  his  impressions  of  the  nerve- 
strain  of  these  weary  rearguard  actions,  a  fa- 
mous cavalry  officer  writing  home,  says :  "  We 
had  a  hell  of  a  time.  .  .  .  But  the  men  were 
splendid.  I  don't  believe  any  other  troops  in 
the  world  could  have  stood  it." 


BROTHERS  IN  ARMS  91 


X 

BROTHERS  IN  ARMS 

THERE  Is  a  fine  fraternity  between  the 
British  and  the  French  soldiers.  They 
don't  understand  very  much  of  each 
other's  speech,  but  they  "  muddle  through," 
as  Atkins  puts  it,  with  ''  any  old  lingo."  The 
French  call  out,  "  Bravo,  Tommee ! "  and 
share  cigarettes  with  him:  and  Atkins,  not 
very  sure  of  his  new  comrades'  military  Chris- 
tian name,  replies  with  a  cheery  "  Right,  Oh !  " 
Then  turning  to  his  own  fellows  he  shouts, 
"  Are  we  downhearted  ?  "  and  the  clamorous 
"  No !  "  always  brings  forth  a  rousing  French 
cheer. 

Having  seen  each  other  in  action  since  they 
first  met  on  the  way  to  battle  they  have 
grown  to  respect  each  other  more  and  more. 
There  is  not  much  interchange  of  compliments 
in  the  letters  from  the  trenches,  but  such  as 
there  is  clearly  establishes  the  belief  of  Atkins 
that  he  is  fighting  side  by  side  with  a  brave 
and  generous  ally. 


92        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

"  We  always  knew/'  writes  one  soldier, 
"  that  the  French  were  swift  and  dangerous 
in  attack,  but  we  know  now  that  they  can 
fight  on  the  stubbornly  defensive."  One  of 
the  South  Lancashires  is  loud  in  his  praise  of 
their  behavior  under  fire.  "  Especially  the  ar- 
tillery," Sergeant  J.  Baker  adds ;  "  the  French 
seem  to  like  the  noise,  and  aren't  happy  unless 
it's  there." 

One  of  The  Times  correspondents  mentions 
that  the  German  guns  have  a  heavy  sound 
"  boum,"  and  the  French  a  sharper  one, 
"bing";  but  neither  of  them  is  very  pleasant 
to  the  ear,  and  it  requires  a  cultured  military 
taste  like  that  of  the  French  to  enjoy  the  full 
harmony  of  the  music  when  the  British 
"  bang  "  is  added  to  the  general  cannonading. 
The  French  artillery  is  admitted  to  be  fine,  the 
deadly  accuracy  of  the  gunners  being  highly 
praised  by  all  who  have  watched  the  havoc 
wrought  in  the  German  lines. 

For  the  French  soldier,  however,  the  path 
of  greatest  glory  lies  in  the  charge.  Dash  and 
fire  are  what  he  possesses  in  the  highest  degree. 
His  highly-strung  temperament  chafes  under 
delays  and  disappointments.  He  hasn't  the 
solid,  bull-dog  courage  that  enables  the  British 
soldier  to  take  hard  knocks,  even  severe  pun- 
ishment, and  come  up  smiling  again  to  renew 


BROTHERS  IN  ARMS  93 


the  battle  that  he  will  only  allow  to  end  in  one 
way,  and  that  way  victory. 

In  the  advance,  as  one  writer  describes  it, 
the  French  dash  forward  in  spasmodic  move- 
ments, making  immediately  for  cover.  After 
a  brief  breathing  space  they  bound  into  the 
open  again,  and  again  seek  any  available  shel- 
ter. And  so  they  proceed  till  the  charge  is 
sounded,  when  with  gleaming  bayonets  and  a 
cry  of  ''pour  la  gloire"  upon  their  lips  they 
sweep  down  upon  the  enemy  at  a  tremendous 
pace.  The  whole  thing  is  exhilarating  to  watch, 
and  to  the  men  engaged  it  is  almost  intoxica- 
ting. They  see  red  and  the  only  thing  that  can 
stop  them  is  the  sheer  dead  weight  of  the 
columns  in  front.  To  the  French  the  exploit 
of  the  9th  Lancers,  already  described  in  this 
volume,  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  war.  They 
would  have  died  to  have  accomplished  it  them- 
selves. The  fine  heroics  of  such  an  exploit 
gives  them  a  crazy  delight.  Then  there  are  the 
forlorn  hopes,  the  bearing  of  messages  across 
a  zone  of  withering  fire,  the  fights  for  the  col- 
ors. One  incident  which  closely  resembles  the 
exploit  of  the  Royal  Irish  Fusifiers  is  recorded. 
A  message  had  to  be  borne  to  another  regiment 
and  volunteers  sprang  forward  eagerly  to  the 
call.  The  enemy's  fire  was  particularly  deadly 
at  this  point,  and  it  seemed  impossible  for  a 


94        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

messenger  to  get  through,  but  no  man  hesi- 
tated. The  first  fell  dead  before  he  had  trav- 
eled many  yards,  the  second  had  a  leg  shot 
off,  the  third  by  amazing  luck  got  through 
without  a  scratch.  Deeds  of  this  kind  have 
endeared  the  French  soldier  to  Tommy  Atkins 
more  than  all  his  extravagant  acts  of  kindness, 
and  the  sympathetic  bond  of  valor  has  linked 
them  together  in  the  close  companionship  of 
brothers-in-arms. 

Having  shown  what  the  British  soldier 
thinks  of  the  French  as  fighting  men,  it  is  pleas- 
ant to  turn  to  our  Ally's  opinion  of  Tommy 
Atkins.  Here  the  letters  deal  in  superlatives. 
M.  Duchene,  French  master  at  Archbishop 
Holgate's  School,  York,  who  was  wounded 
with  his  regiment  at  Verdun,  writes  in  glow- 
ing terms  of  his  comrades'  praise.  "  Ah,  those 
English  soldiers !  "  he  says.  *'  In  my  regiment 
you  only  hear  such  expressions  as  'lis  sonf 
magnifiqucs'  'lis  sont  sitpcrhs'  'Quels  sol- 
dats!'  No  better  tribute  could  be  given." 
Another  Frenchman  with  the  army  of  the  Re- 
public is  stirred  into  this  eulogy  in  a  letter 
to  a  friend  in  England :  **  How  fine  they  are, 
how  splendidly  they  behave,  these  English  sol- 
diers !  In  their  discipline  and  their  respect  for 
their  officers  they  are  magnificent,  and  you  will 


BROTHERS  IN  ARMS  95 


never  know   how   much   we   have   applauded 
them." 

Another  Frenchman,  acting  as  interpreter 
with  a  Scottish  regiment,  relates  with  amaze- 
ment how  the  Highlanders  go  into  action,  ''  as 
if  they  were  going  to  a  picnic,  with  laughing 
eyes  and,  whenever  possible,  with  a  cigarette 
between  their  lips.  Their  courage  is  a  mixture 
of  imperturbability  and  tenacity.  One  must 
have  seen  their  immovable  calm,  their  heroic 
sang-froid,  under  the  rain  of  bullets  to  do  it 
justice."  Then  he  goes  on  to  describe  how  a 
handful  of  Scots  were  selected  to  hold  back 
a  large  body  of  Germans  in  a  village  to  enable 
the  main  body  of  the  British  to  retire  in  good 
order.  They  took  up  a  position  in  the  first 
house  they  came  to  and  fired  away  at  the  in- 
vaders, who  rained  bullets  on  the  building. 
Some  of  the  gallant  little  party  fell,  but  the 
others  kept  up  the  fight.  Then  there  came 
a  pause  in  the  attack,  the  German  fire  ceased, 
the  enemy  was  seeking  a  more  sheltered  posi- 
tion. During  this  brief  respite  the  sergeant 
in  command  of  the  Scots  surveyed  the  building 
they  had  entered.  It  was  a  small  grocer's  shop, 
and  on  an  upper  shelf  he  found  a  few  packets 
of  chocolate.  "  Here,  lads,"  he  shouted, 
"  whoever  kills  his  man  gets  a  bit  o'  this." 


96        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

The  firing  began  again,  and  as  each  marksman 
succeeded,  the  imperturbable  Scot  shouted 
"  Got  him,"  and  handed  over  the  prize  amid 
roars  of  laughter.  '*  Alas,"  comments  the  nar- 
rator, "  there  were  few  prize-winners  who  lived 
to  taste  their  reward." 

The  same  eulogist,  whose  narrative  was  ob- 
tained by  Renter's  correspondent,  also  speaks 
of  the  fastidious  Scot's  preoccupations.  He 
has  two  —  to  be  able  to  shave  and  to  have  tea. 
**  No  danger,"  the  Frenchman  declares,  "  de- 
ters them  from  their  allegiance  to  the  razor 

and  the  teapot.     At  ,  in  the  department 

of  the  Nord,  I  heard  a  British  officer  of  high 
rank  declare  with  delicious  calm  between  two 
attacks  on  the  town :  *  Gentlemen,  it  was 
nothing.  Let's  go  and  have  tea.'  Meanwhile 
his  men  took  advantage  of  the  brief  respite  to 
crowd  round  the  pump,  where,  producing  soap 
and  strop,  they  proceeded  to  shave  minutely 
and  conscientiously  with  little  bits  of  broken 
glass  serv'ing  as  mirrors." 

The  same  sense  of  order  and  method  also 
struck  another  Frenchman,  who  speaks  of  the 
"  amazing  Englishmen,"  who  carry  everything 
with  them,  and  are  never  in  want  of  anything, 
not  even  of  sleep! 

Certainly  there  is  much  truth  in  these  trib- 
utes to  the  British  military  organization,  but 


BROTHERS  IN  ARMS  97 

that  is  another  story  and  for  another  chapter. 
The  opinion  of  an  English  cavalry  officer,  how- 
ever, may  be  quoted  as  to  the  relative  merits 
of  the  French  and  English  horses.  "  The 
French  horses,"  he  writes,  "  are  awful.  They 
look  after  them  so  badly.  They  all  say, '  What 
lovely  horses  you  have,'  to  us,  and  they  do  look 
fine  beside  theirs,  but  we  look  after  ours  so 
well.  We  always  dismount  and  feed  them  on 
all  occasions  with  hay  and  wheat  found  on  the 
farms  and  in  stacks  in  the  fields,  also  clover. 
The  French  never  do." 

As  a  result  of  these  observations  the  French 
appear  to  have  been  applying  themselves  to 
the  study  of  the  British  fighting  force.  "  I 
know  for  a  fact,"  says  Trooper  G.  Douglas, 
"  that  French  officers  have  been  moving 
amongst  us  studying  our  methods.  The  French 
Tommies  try  to  copy  us  a  lot,  and  they  like, 
when  they  have  time,  to  stroll  into  our  lines  for 
a  chat  or  a  game;  but  it's  precious  little  time 
there  is  for  that  now." 

But  it  is  in  character  and  temperament  that 
the  chief  differences  of  the  allies  lie.  "  Briga- 
dier "  Mary  Murray,  who  went  to  the  front 
with  other  members  of  the  Salvation  Army, 
records  a  conversation  she  had  with  a  French 
soldier  over  a  cup  of  coffee.  "  Ah,"  he  said, 
"  we  lose  heavily,  we  French.     We  haven't  the 


98        TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

patience  of  the  English.  They  are  fine  and 
can  wait :  we  must  rush !  "  And  yet  Tommy 
Atkins  can  do  a  bit  of  rushing  too.  Private 
R.  Duffy,  of  the  Rifle  Brigade,  sends  home 
a  Hvely  account  of  the  defense  of  the  Marne 
in  which  a  mixed  force  of  British  and  French 
was  engaged.  The  object  to  be  achieved  was 
to  drive  back  the  Germans  who  w^ere  attempt- 
ing to  cross  the  river.  ^'  About  half  a  mile 
from  the  banks,"  writes  Duffy,  "  w^e  came  out 
from  a  wood  to  find  a  French  infantry  bat- 
talion going  across  in  the  same  direction.  We 
didn't  want  to  be  behind,  so  we  put  our  best 
foot  forward,  and  one  of  the  most  exciting 
races  you  ever  saw  followed.  We  got  in  first 
by  a  head,  as  you  might  say,  and  we  w^ere  just 
in  time  to  tackle  a  mob  of  Germans  heading 
for  the  crossing  in  disorder.  We  went  at  them 
with  the  bayonet,  but  they  didn't  seem  to  have 
the  least  heart  for  fighting.  Some  of  them 
flung  themselves  in  the  stream  and  tried  to 
swim  to  safety,  but  they  wxre  heavily  ac- 
coutered  and  worn  out  so  they  didn't  go  very 
far.  Of  about  three  hundred  men  w'ho  tried 
this  not  more  than  half  a  dozen  succeeded  in 
reaching  the  other  bank." 

In  spite  of  all  the  hatreds  the  war  has  en- 
gendered —  and  one  of  the  Royal  Lancasters 
declares   that   the   sign   manual  of   friendship 


BROTHERS  IN  ARMS  99 

between  the  French  and  the  English  soldier  is 
"  a  cross  on  the  throat  indicating  their  wish 
to  the  Kaiser  " —  there  is  still  room  for  pas- 
sages of  fine  sympathy  and  chivalry.  One 
young  French  lieutenant  distinguished  himself 
by  carrying  a  wounded  Uhlan  to  a  place  of 
safety  under  a  heavy  German  fire,  English  sol- 
diers have  shown  equal  generosity  and  kindness 
to  injured  captives,  and  the  tributes  to  heroic 
and  patient  nurses  shine  forth  in  letters  of  gold 
upon  the  dark  pages  of  this  tragic  history. 
Here  is  a  touching  letter  from  one  of  the 
King's  Own  Royal  Lancasters.  "  In  one  hos- 
pital, which  was  a  church,"  he  writes,  "  there 
was  a  young  French  girl  helping  to  bandage 
us  up.  How  she  stood  it  I  don't  know.  There 
were  some  awful  sights,  but  she  never  quailed 
—  just  a  sad  sweet  smile  for  every  one.  If 
ever  any  one  deserved  a  front  seat  in  Heaven 
this  young  angel  did.  God  bless  her !  She  has 
the  prayers  and  all  the  love  the  remnants  of 
the  Fourth  Division  can  give  her." 

And  another  pretty  little  tribute  is  paid  to 
the  kindness  of  a  French  lady  to  four  English 
soldiers  billeted  at  her  house.  "  She  was  won- 
drous kind,"  writes  one  of  the  grateful  sol- 
diers, "  and  when  we  left  for  the  front  Madame 
and  her  mother  sobbed  and  wept  as  if  we  had 
been  their  own  sons." 


loo      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


XI 

ATKINS  AND  THE  ENEMY 

IN  one  of  his  fine  messages  from  the  front. 
Sir  John  French,  whom  the  New  York 
World  has  described  as  the  "  best  of  war 
correspondents,"  referred  to  the  British  soldier 
as  "  a  difficult  person  to  impress  or  depress." 
He  meant,  of  course,  that  it  was  no  use  trying 
to  terrify  Tommy  Atkins.  Nothing  will  do 
that.  His  stupendous  sense  of  humor  carries 
him,  smiling,  through  every  emergency. 

But  Atkins  is  a  keen  observer,  and  he  takes 
on  very  clear  and  vivid  impressions  of  men 
and  affairs.  He  hates  compromises  and  quali- 
fications, and  just  lets  you  have  his  opinion  — 
*'  biff!  "  as  one  officer  expresses  it. 

"  Bill  and  I  have  been  thinking  it  over," 
says  one  letter  from  the  trenches,  "  and  we've 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  German  army 
system  is  rotten."  There  you  have  the  con- 
centrated wisdom  of  hundreds  of  soldier  critics 
who  talk  of  the  Kaiser's  great  military  machine 


I       >    > 
1  >      > 


^— ^1^— ^—  [     I     ,         I    <  I     '       III-     I  *^  J I  »  I  ^y— i^— 

ATKINS  AND  THE  ENEMY      loi 


as  they  know  it  from  intimate  contact  with 
the  fighting  force  it  propels.  They  admit  its 
mechanical  perfection;  it  is  the  human  factor 
that  breaks  down. 

Nothing  has  impressed  Tommy  Atkins  more 
than  the  lack  of  morale  in  the  German  soldiers. 
"  Oh,  they  are  brave  enough,  poor  devils ; 
but  they've  got  no  heart  in  the  fighting,"  he 
says.  That  is  absolutely  true.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  of  them  have  no  notion  of  what 
they  are  fighting  for.  Some  of  the  prisoners 
declared  that  when  they  left  the  garrisons  they 
were  "  simply  told  they  were  going  to  ma- 
neuvers " ;  "  others,"  says  a  Royal  Artillery- 
man, "  had  no  idea  they  were  fighting  the  Eng- 
lish " ;  according  to  a  Highland  officer,  sur- 
rendering Germans  said  their  fellows  had  been 
assured  that  "  America  and  Japan  were  fight- 
ing on  their  side,  and  that  another  Boer  war 
was  going  on  " ;  and  a  final  illusion  was  dis- 
pelled when  those  captured  by  the  Royal  Irish 
were  told  that  the  civil  war  in  Ireland  had  been 
"  put  off !  " 

It  is  not  only  that  the  men  lack  this  moral 
preparation  for  war.  Their  system  of  fighting 
is  demoralizing.  "  They  come  on  in  close  for- 
mation, thousands  of  them,  just  like  sheep  be- 
ing driven  to  the  slaughter,"  is  the  description 
that  nine   soldiers  out   of  every  ten  give  of 


102      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

the  Germans  going  into  action.  "  We  just 
mow  them  down  in  heaps/'  says  an  artillery- 
man. "  Lord,  even  a  woman  couldn't  miss 
hitting  them,"  is  the  comment  from  the  In- 
fantry. And  as  for  the  cavalry :  "  Well,  we 
just  makes  holes  in  them,"  adds  one  of  the 
Dragoons.  At  first  they  didn't  take  cover  at 
all,  but  just  marched  into  action  with  their 
drums  beating  and  bands  playing,  "  like  a 
blooming  parade,"  as  Atkins  puts  it.  After 
the  first  slaughter,  however,  they  shrank  from 
the  attack,  and  there  is  ample  evidence  of  eye- 
witnesses that  the  German  infantry  often  had 
to  be  lashed  into  battle  by  their  officers.  "  I  saw 
a  colonel  striking  his  own  men  with  his  sword 
to  prevent  them  running  away,"  is  one  of  the 
many  statements.  Revolvers,  too,  were  freely 
used  for  the  same  purpose. 

But,  generally  speaking,  there  is  iron  disci- 
pline in  the  Kaiser's  army.  The  men  obey  their 
officers  implicitly.  Trooper  E.  Tugwell,  of  the 
Berwicks,  tells  this  little  story  of  a  cavalry 
charge  from  which  a  German  infantry  regiment 
bolted  —  all  but  one  company,  whose  officers 
ordered  them  to  stand :  "  They  faced  round 
without  attempting  to  fire  a  shot,  and  stood 
there  like  statues  to  meet  the  onslaught  of  our 
men.  Our  chaps  couldn't  help  admiring  their 
fine  discipline,  but  there's  not  much  room  for 


ATKINS  AND  THE  ENEMY      103 


sentiment  in  war,  and  we  rode  at  them  with  the 
lance,  and  swept  them  away."  "  They  are  big 
fellows,  and,  in  a  way,  brave,"  writes  Private 
P.  Case  of  the  King's  (Liverpool)  Regiment, 
describing  one  of  their  attacks;  "they  must 
be  brave,  or  they  would  not  have  kept  ad- 
vancing when  they  saw  their  dead  so  thick 
that  they  were  practically  standing  up." 
"  Their  officers  simply  won't  let  them  surren- 
der," says  another  writer,  "  and  so  long  as 
there's  an  officer  about  they'll  stand  like  sheep 
and  be  slaughtered  by  the  thousand.  The  es- 
sential difference  between  the  German  soldiers 
and  our  own  is  in  the  officering  and  training, 
and  it  is  admirably  expressed  by  Private  Bur- 
rell,  Northumberland  Fusiliers.  "  We  are  led ; 
they  are  driven,"  *  is  Burrell's  epigram. 

According  to  other  letter  writers,  the  Ger- 
man soldiers  are  absolutely  tyrannized  over  by 
their  officers.  They  are  horribly  ill-used, 
badly  fed,t  overworked,  constantly  under  the 
lash.  "  They  hate  their  officers  like  poison, 
and  fear  them  ten  times  more  than  they  fear 
death,"  says  Private  Martin  King.  '*  Most  of 
the  prisoners  that  Fve  seen  are  only  fit  for 

*  "The  German  officers  are  a  rum  lot,"  writes  Ser- 
geant W.  Holmes;  "they  lead  from  the  rear  all  the 
time." 

t  "When  they  are  working  hardest  their  rations 
would  not  do  for  a  tom-tit,"  says  Sergeant  J.  Baker. 


;   i 


104      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

the  hospital,  and  many  of  them  will  never  be 
fit  for  anything  else  this  side  of  the  grave. 
Their  officers  don't  seem  to  have  any  consid- 
eration for  the  men  at  all,  and  we  have  a  sus- 
picion that  the  heavy  losses  of  German  officers 
aren't  all  due  to  our  fire.  There  was  one 
brought  in  who  had  certainly  been  hit  by  one 
of  their  own  bullets,  and  in  the  back  too." 
Other  soldiers  say  the  same,  and  add  that  if 
it  weren't  for  dread  of  their  officers  the  Ger- 
mans would  surrender  wholesale.  "  Take  the 
officers  away,  and  their  regiments  fall  to 
pieces,"  is  the  dictum  of  one  of  the  Somerset 
Light  Infantry,  ''  and  that's  why  we  always 
pick  off  the  German  officers  first." 

There  is  not  the  slightest  divergence  of  opin- 
ion in  the  British  ranks  as  to  the  German  in- 
fantry fire.  "  Their  shooting  is  laughable," 
*'  they  couldn't  hit  a  haystack  in  an  entry,"  and 
"  asses  with  the  rifle,"  are  how  our  men  dis- 
pose of  it.  The  Germans  fire  recklessly  with 
their  rifles  planted  against  their  hips,  while 
Tommy  Atkins  takes  cool  and  steady  aim,  and 
lets  them  have  it  from  the  shoulder.  "  We 
just  knocked  them  over  like  nine-pins,"  a  High- 
lander explained.  As  to  the  German  cavalry, 
one  Tommy  expressed  the  prevailing  opinion 
to  nicety.  ''  I  don't  want  to  be  nasty,"  he  said, 
"  but  what  we  all  pray  for  is  just  half-an-hour 


ATKINS  AND  THE  ENEMY      105 

each  way  with  three  times  our  number  of 
Uhlans." 

When  it  comes  to  artillery,  however,  Atkins 
has  nothing  but  praise  for  the  enemy.  Their 
aeroplanes  flutter  over  the  British  positions  and 
give  the  gunners  the  exact  range,  and  then 
they  let  go.  "  I  can  only  figure  it  out  as  be- 
ing something  worse  than  the  mouth  of  hell," 
declares  Private  John  Stiles,  ist  Gloucesters, 
and  it  may  be  here  left  at  that,  as  the  devasta- 
ting effects  of  artillery  have  already  been  dealt 
with  in  a  previous  chapter.  One  thing  which 
has  puzzled  and  sometimes  baffled  our  men  is 
the  way  the  Germans  conceal  their  guns.  They 
display  extraordinary  ingenuity  in  this  direc- 
tion, hiding  them  inside  haystacks,  in  leaf-cov- 
ered trenches,  and  sometimes,  unhappily,  in 
Red  Cross  wagons. 

Stories  of  German  treachery  are  abundant, 
and  official  reports  have  dealt  with  such  shame- 
ful practises  as  driving  prisoners  and  refugees 
in  front  of  them  when  attacking,  abusing  the 
protection  of  the  White  Flag,  and  wearing  Red 
Cross  brassards  in  action.  The  men  have 
their  ow^n  stories  to  tell.  An  Irish  Guardsman 
records  a  white  flag  incident  during  the  fight- 
ing on  the  Aisne :  "  Coldstreamers,  Con- 
naughts,  Grenadiers,  and  Irish  Guards  were 
all  in  this  affair,  and  the  fight  was  going  on 


io6      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

well.  Suddenly  the  Germans  in  front  of  us 
raised  the  white  flag,  and  we  ceased  firing  and 
went  up  to  take  our  prisoners.  The  moment 
we  got  into  the  open,  fierce  fire  from  concealed 
artillery  was  turned  on  us,  and  the  surrendered 
Germans  picked  up  their  rifles  and  pelted  us 
with  their  fire.  It  was  horrible.  They  trapped 
us  completely,  and  very  few  escaped."  The 
German  defense  of  these  white  flag  incidents 
was  given  to  Trooper  G.  Douglas  by  a  prisoner 
who  declared  that  the  men  were  quite  innocent 
of  intention  to  deceive,  but  that  whenever  their 
officers  saw  the  white  flag  they  hauled  it  down, 
and  compelled  them  to  fight. 

Many  British  soldiers  suffered  from  the 
treachery  of  the  Germans  in  wearing  English 
and  French  uniforms,  and  their  letters  home 
are  full  of  indignation  at  the  practises  of  the 
enemy.  It  was  in  the  fighting  following  such 
a  ruse  at  Landrecies  that  the  Honorable 
Archer-Windsor-Clive,  of  the  Coldstream 
Guards,  met  his  death.  "  Another  time,"  an 
artillery  officer  relates,  "  they  ran  into  one  of 
our  regiments  with  some  of  their  officers 
dressed  in  French  uniforms.  They  said  *  Ne 
tirez-pas,  nous  sommes  Frangais,'  and  asked 
for  the  C.O.  He  came  up,  and  then  they 
calmly  blew  his  brains  out!  "  A  similar  act  of 
treachery   is   recorded  by  Lieutenant  Oswald 


ATKINS  AND  THE  ENEMY      107 

Anne,  R.A.,  in  a  letter  published  in  the  Leeds 
Mercury:  *'  At  one  place  where  the  Berkshire 
Regiment  was  on  guard  a  German  force  arrived 
attired  in  French  uniforms.  To  keep  up  the 
illusion,  a  German  called  out  in  French  from 
the  wire  entanglements  that  they  wanted  to  in- 
terview the  commanding  officer.  A  major  of 
the  Berkshires  who  spoke  French,  went  for- 
ward, and  was  immediately  shot  down.  This 
sort  of  thing  is  of  daily  occurrence."  Lieuten- 
ant Edgcumbe,  son  of  Sir  Robert  Edgcumbe, 
Newquay,  tells  of  another  instance  of  treachery 
in  which  British  uniforms  were  used,  and  de- 
clares, in  common  with  many  other  officers, 
that  he  "  will  never  again  respect  the  Germans ; 
they  have  no  code  of  honor ! " 

They  strip  the  uniforms  from  the  dead,  come 
on  in  night  attacks  shouting  "  Vive,  I'Angle- 
terre !  "  and  sound  the  British  bugle-call  "  Cease 
fire  "  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight.  Twice  in 
one  engagement  the  Germans  stopped  the 
British  fire  by  the  mean  device  of  the  bugle, 
and  twice  they  charged  desperately  upon  the 
silent  ranks.  But  in  nearly  every  case  their 
punishment  for  these  violations  of  the  laws  of 
civilized  warfare  has  been  swift  and  terrible, 
and  no  mercy  has  been  shown  them. 

Charges  of  barbarity  are  also  common  in 
letters  from  the  battlefields.     One  officer,  who 


io8      TOr^IMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

says  he  "  never  before  realized  what  an  awful 
thing  war  is,"  writes :  "  We  have  with  us  in 
the  trenches  three  girls  who  came  to  us  for 
protection.  One  had  no  clothes  on,  having 
been  outraged  by  the  Germans.  I  have  given 
her  my  shirt  and  divided  my  rations  among 
them.  In  consequence  I  feel  rather  hungry, 
having  had  nothing  for  thirty-two  hours,  ex- 
cept some  milk  chocolate.  Another  poor  girl 
has  just  come  in,  having  had  both  her  breasts 
cut  off.  Luckily  I  caught  the  Uhlan  officer  in 
the  act,  and  with  a  ritie  at  300  yards  killed 
him.  And  now  she  is  with  us,  but,  poor  girl, 
I  am  afraid  she  will  die.  She  is  very  pretty 
and  onlv  about  nineteen."  * 

Captain  Roffey,  Lancashire  Fusiliers,  tells 
how  he  was  found  wounded,  and  handed  over 
his  revolver  to  the  Germans,  whereupon  his 
captor  used  it  to  shoot  him  again,  and  left  him 
for  dead.  There  is  no  end  to  the  stories  of 
this  kind,  and  one  of  the  wounded  vehemently 
declared  that  the  "  devilry  of  the  Germans  can- 
not be  exaggerated." 

There  are  others  amongst  the  wounded  how- 
ever, who  have  received  nothing  but  kindness 
from  the  enemy.  Lieutenant  H.  G.  W.  Irwin, 
South  Lancashire  Regiment,  pays  a  tribute  to 

*  This  letter  was  written  to  the  son  of  a  London  vicar, 
and  published  in  The  Times,  Sept.  12th,  1914. 


ATKINS  AND  THE  ENEMY      109 

the  treatment  he  met  with  in  the  German  lines ; 
Captain  J.  B.  George,  Royal  Irish,  "  could  not 
have  been  better  treated  had  he  been  the  Crown 
Prince ;  "  and  one  of  the  Officer's  Special  Re- 
serve says  the  stories  of  "  brutality  are  only 
exceptions,  and  there  are  exceptions  in  every 
army." 

And  here  it  is  worth  quoting  a  happy  ex- 
ample of  German  chivalry.  It  is  taken  from 
one  of  Sir  John  French's  messages.  A  small 
party  of  French  under  a  non-commissioned  of- 
ficer was  cut  off  and  surrounded.  After  a 
desperate  resistance  it  was  decided  to  go  on 
fighting  to  the  end.  Finally,  the  N.C.O.  and 
one  man  only  were  left,  both  being  wounded. 
The  Germans  came  up  and  shouted  to  them  to 
lay  down  their  arms.  The  German  comman- 
der, however,  signed  to  them  to  keep  their  arms, 
and  then  asked  for  permission  to  shake  hands 
with  the  wounded  non-commissioned  officer, 
who  was  carried  off  on  his  stretcher  with  his 
rifle  by  his  side. 

After  this  account  of  what  British  soldiers 
think  of  the  enemy,  it  is  interesting  to  read 
what  is  the  German  opinion  of  Tommy  Atkins. 
Evidently  the  fighting  men  do  not  share  the 
Kaiser's  estimate  of  "  French's  contemptible  lit- 
tle army."  Three  very  interesting  letters,  writ- 
ten by  German  officers,  and  found  in  the  pos- 


no      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

session  of  the  captives,  were  published  in  an 
official  despatch  from  General  Headquarters. 
Here  are  extracts  from  each : 

( 1 )  "  With  the  English  troops  we  have 
great  difficulties.  They  have  a  queer  way 
of  causing  losses  to  the  enemy.  They 
make  good  trenches,  in  which  they  wait 
patiently.  They  carefully  measure  the 
ranges  for  their  rifle  fire,  and  then  they 
open  a  truly  hellish  fire  on  the  unsuspect- 
ing cavalry.  This  was  the  reason  that  we 
had  such  heavy  losses. 

(2)  "  The  English  are  very  brave  and 
fight  to  the  last.  .  .  .  One  of  our  com- 
panies has  lost  130  men  out  of  240." 

(3)  "  W^  ^1"^  fighting  with  the  English 
Guards,  Highlanders  and  Zouaves.  The 
losses  on  both  sides  have  been  enormous. 
The  English  are  marvelously  trained  in 
making  use  of  the  ground.  One  never 
sees  them,  and  one  is  constantly  under 
fire.  Two  days  ago,  early  in  the  morning, 
we  were  attacked  by  immensely  superior 
English  forces  (one  brigade  and  two  bat- 
talions) and  were  turned  out  of  our  posi- 
tions. The  fellows  took  five  guns  from 
us.  It  was  a  tremendous  hand-to-hand 
fight.     How  I  escaped  myself  I  am  not 


ATKINS  AND  THE  ENEMY     iii 

clear.  .  .  .  If  we  first  beat  the  English,  the 
French  resistance  will  soon  be  broken." 

The  admissions  of  prisoners  that  the  Ger- 
mans were  amazed  at  the  fighting  qualities  of 
the  British  soldier,  and  had  acquired  a  whole- 
some dread  of  meeting  him  at  close  quarters, 
may  have  been  colored  by  a  trifling  disposition 
to  be  amiable  in  their  captivity;  but  letters 
such  as  those  just  quoted  are  honest  statements 
for  private  reading  in  Germany,  and  were  never 
intended  to  fall  into  British  hands. 

Although  Tommy  Atkins  makes  occasional 
jocular  allusions  to  the  enemy  as  "  Sausages  " 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  considers  the  German 
army  a  very  substantial  fighting  force.  "  The 
German  is  not  a  toy  terrier,  but  a  bloodhound 
thirsting  for  blood,"  is  one  description  of  him; 
"  getting  to  Berlin  isn't  going  to  be  a  cheap 
excursion,"  says  another;  and,  to  quote  a 
third,  "  in  spite  of  all  we  say  about  the  Teuton, 
he  is  taking  his  punishment  well,  and  we've  got 
a  big  job  on  our  hands." 


112      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 


XII 
THE  WAR  IN  THE  AIR 

MR.  H.  G.  WELLS  did  not  long  antici- 
pate the  sensations  of  an  aerial  conflict 
between  the  nations.  Six  years  after 
the  publication  of  his  War  in  the  Air  the  thing 
has  become  an  accomplished  fact,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  history  the  great  nations  are  fight- 
ing for  the  mastery  not  only  upon  land  but  in 
the  air  and  under  the  sea. 

Fine  as  have  been  the  adventures  of  airmen 
in  times  of  peace,  and  startling  as  spectators 
have  found  the  acrobatic  performance  of 
"  looping  the  loop,"  these  tricks  of  the  air  ap- 
pear feeble  exploits  compared  with  the  new 
sensation  of  an  actual  battle  in  the  clouds. 
Soldiers,  scribbling  their  letters  in  the  trenches, 
have  been  fascinated  by  the  sudden  appearance 
at  dusk  of  a  hostile  aeroplane,  and  have  gazed 
with  pleasurable  agitation  as  out  of  the  dim, 
mysterious  distance  a  British  aviator  shot  up 
in  pursuit. 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  AIR  113 

'. : '. 1 

"  It  is  thrilling  and  magnificent,"  says  one  j 

officer,  "  and  I  was  filled  with  rapture  at  the  ; 

spectacle  of  the  first  fight  in  the  clouds.     The  | 

German  maneuvered  for  position  and  prepared  j 

to  attack,  but  our  fellow  was  too  quick  for  him,  j 

and  darted  into  a  higher  plane.     The  German  ] 

tried  to  circle  round  and   follow,  and  so  in  i 

short  spurts  they  fought  for  mastery,  firing 
at  each  other  all  the  time,  the  machines  sway-  ' 

ing  and  oscillating  violently.     The  British  air-  ! 

man,  however,  well  maintained  his  ascendency.  '< 

Then  suddenly  there  was  a  pause,  the  Ger- 
man machine  began  to  reel,  the  wounded  pilot  : 
had  lost  control,  and  with  a  dive  the  aeroplane  j 
came  to  earth  half  a  mile  away.  Our  man  ] 
hovered  about  for  a  time,  and  then  calmly  i 
glided  away  over  the  German  lines  to  recon-  \ 
noiter."                                                                                  i 

Nothing  could  excel  the  skill  and  daring  i 

shown  by  the  men  of  the  Royal  Flying  Corps.  - 

They  stop  at  nothing.     Some  of  their  machines  I 

have  been  so  badly  damaged  by  rifle  and  shell  } 

fire  that  on  descending  they  have  had  to  be  | 

destroyed.  ; 

"  Fired  at  constantly  both  by   friend  and  I 

foe,"  Sir  John  French  writes,  "  and  not  hesi-  j 

tating  to  fly  in  every  kind  of  weather,  they  I 

have  remained  undaunted  throughout."     The  \ 

highest  praise  is  bestowed  upon  Brigadier-Gen-  ■ 


114      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

eral  Sir  David  Henderson,  in  command  of  the 
Corps,  for  the  high  state  of  efficienc}^  this 
young  branch  of  the  service  has  attained.  It 
has  been  on  its  trial,  and  has  already  covered 
itself  with  glory.  General  Joffre,  the  French 
Commander-in-Chief,  has  sent  a  special  mes- 
sage singling  out  the  British  Flying  Corps 
"  most  particularly  "  for  his  highest  eulogies. 
Several  English  airmen  have  already  been  made 
Chevaliers  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

That  the  nervous  strain  of  aerial  warfare  is 
severe  is  shown  by  expression  in  several  air- 
men's letters.  Not  only  have  they  to  fight 
their  man,  but  they  have  to  manage  their  ma- 
chines at  the  same  time.  This  means  that  if 
an  airman  ascends  alone  he  is  unable  to  use 
a  rifle  and  must  depend  for  attack  on  revolver 
fire  only.  This  is  illustrated  by  a  passage  in 
one  of  the  official  reports :  "  Unfortunately 
one  of  our  aviators,  who  has  been  particularly 
active  in  annoying  the  enemy  by  dropping 
bombs,  was  wounded  in  a  duel  in  the  air.  Be- 
ing alone  on  a  single-seated  monoplane,  he 
was  not  able  to  use  a  rifle,  and  whilst  circling 
above  a  German  two-seater  in  an  endeavor  to 
get  within  pistol  shot  was  hit  by  the  observer 
of  the  latter,  who  was  armed  with  a  rifle.  He 
managed  to  fly  back  over  our  lines,  and  by 
great  good  luck  descended  close  to  a  motor 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  AIR         115 


ambulance,  which  at  once  conveyed  him  to  hos- 
pital." 

This  appears  to  be  only  the  second  instance 
recorded  during  the  first  two  months  of  the 
w^ar  in  which  our  airmen  have  suffered  mishap, 
yet  half-a-dozen  German  machines  have  been 
brought  down  and  their  navigators  either  killed 
or  wounded.  Private  Harman,  King's  Royal 
Rifles,  describes  an  exciting  pursuit  in  which 
a  German  aeroplane  was  captured.  The  Brit- 
ish aviator,  who  had  the  advantage  in  speed 
and  was  a  good  revolver  shot,  evidently  greatly 
distressed  the  fugitive,  for,  surrendered,  he 
planed  down  in  good  order,  and  on  landing  was 
found  to  be  dead. 

According  to  an  officer  in  the  Royal  Flying 
Corps  the  worst  aerial  experience  in  war  is  to 
go  up  as  a  passenger.  *'  It  is  '  loathly,'  "  he 
says,  "  to  sit  still  helplessly  and  be  fired  at." 
In  one  flight  as  a  spectator  his  machine  was 
"  shelled  and  shot  at  about  a  hundred  times, 
but  luckily  only  thirteen  shots  went  through 
the  planes  and  neither  of  us  was  hit."  An  in- 
teresting account  of  a  battle  seen  from  the 
clouds  is  given  in  a  letter  published  by  The 

Times.     "  I  was  up  with for  an  evening 

reconnaissance  over  this  huge  battle.  I  bet  it 
wall  ever  be  remembered  as  the  biggest  in  his- 
tory.    It  extends  from  Compiegne  right  away 


ii6      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

east  to  Belfort.  Can  you  imagine  such  a  sight? 
We  flew  at  5  p.m.  over  the  line,  and  at  that 
time  the  British  Army  guns  (artillery,  heavy 
and  field)  all  opened  fire  together.  We  flew 
at  5,000  feet  and  saw  a  sight  which  I  hope 
it  will  never  be  my  lot  to  see  again.  The 
woods  and  hills  were  literally  cut  to  ribbons 
all  along  the  south  of  Laon.  It  was  marvelous 
watching  hundreds  of  shells  bursting  below  one 
to  right  and  left  for  miles,  and  then  to  see  the 
Germans  replying." 

Another  officer  of  the  Flying  Corps  describes 
his  impression  of  the  Battle  of  Mons,  seen  from 
a  height  of  5,000  feet.  British  shells  were 
bursting  like  little  bits  of  cotton  wool  over  the 
German  batteries.  A  German  attack  devel- 
oped, and  the  airman  likens  the  enemy's  ad- 
vance formation  to  a  **  large  human  tadpole  " 
—  a  long  dense  column  with  the  head  spread 
out  in  front. 

Evidently  the  anti-aircraft  guns,  though 
rather  terrifying,  do  very  little  damage.  Air- 
men have  had  shells  burst  all  round  them  for 
a  long  time  without  being  hurt.  Of  course 
they  are  careful  to  fly  at  a  high  altitude. 
When  struck  by  shrapnel,  however,  an  aero- 
plane (one  witness  says)  *' just  crumples  up 
like  a  broken  egg."  On  the  other  hand,  bombs 
dropped  from  aeroplanes  do  great  damage,  if 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  AIR         117 

properly  directed.  A  petrol  bomb  was  dropped 
by  an  English  airman  at  night  into  a  German 
bivouac  with  alarming  results,  and  another 
thrown  at  a  cavalry  column  struck  an  ammu- 
nition wagon  and  killed  fifteen  men.  A  French 
airman  wiped  out  a  cavalry  troop  with  a  bomb, 
and  the  effect  of  the  steel  arrows  used  by 
French  aviators  is  known  to  be  damaging. 
The  German  bombs  thrown  by  Zeppelins  and 
Taube  aeroplanes  on  Antwerp  and  Paris  do 
not  appear  to  have  much  disturbed  either  the 
property  or  equanimity  of  the  inhabitants.  So 
far  as  aerial  excursions  are  concerned  the  most 
brilliant  exploit  is  undoubtedly  that  of  FHght- 
Lieutenant  C.  H.  Collet,  of  the  Naval  Wing 
of  the  British  Flying  Corps,  who,  with  a  fleet 
of  five  aeroplanes  swept  across  the  German 
frontier  and,  hovering  over  Diisseldorf, 
dropped  three  bombs  with  unerring  effect  upon 
the  Zeppelin  sheds. 

Bomb-dropping,  however,  has  not  been  in- 
dulged in  to  any  great  extent  by  either  of  the 
combatants,  and  the  chief  use  to  which  air 
machines  have  been  put  is  that  of  scouting. 
The  Germans  use  them  largely  for  range  find- 
ing, and  they  seem  to  prove  a  very  accurate 
guide  to  the  gunners.  "  We  were  advancing 
on  the  German  right  and  doing  splendidly," 
writes  Private  Boardman  (Bradford)  "  when 


ii8      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

we  saw  an  aeroplane  hover  right  over  our 
heads,  and  by  some  signahng  give  the  German 
artillery  the  range.  The  aviator  had  hardly 
gone  when  we  were  riddled  with  shot  and 
shell."  A  sergeant  of  the  21st  Lancers  says 
the  signaling  is  done  by  dropping  a  kind  of 
silver  ball  or  disc  from  the  aeroplanes,  and  the 
Germans  watch  for  this  and  locate  our  position 
to  a  nicety  at  once. 

As  scouts  —  and  that,  meantime,  is  the  real 
practical  purpose  of  aeroplanes  in  war —  the 
British  aviators  have  done  wonders.  Their  ma- 
chines are  lighter  and  faster  than  those  of  the 
Germans,  and  as  they  make  a  daily  average 
of  nine  reconnaissance  flights  of  over  100  miles 
each  it  will  be  understood  that  they  keep  the 
Intelligence  Department  well  supplied  with  ac- 
curate information  of  the  enemy's  movements. 

French  airmen  are  particularly  daring  both 
in  reconnaissance  and  in  flight,  and  the  well- 
known  M.  Vedrines,  whose  achievements  are 
familiar  to  English  people,  has  already  brought 
down  three  German  aeroplanes.  In  one  en- 
counter he  fought  in  a  Bleriot  machine  carry- 
ing a  mitrailleuse,  and  the  enemy  dropped,  rid- 
dled with  bullets.  So  completely  have  some 
of  the  aeroplanes  been  perforated,  without  mis- 
hap, says  the  Daily  Telegraph's  war  correspond- 
ent, that  the  pilots  have  found  a  new  game. 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  AIR         119 

Each  evening  after  their  flights  they  count  the 
number  of  bullet  holes  in  their  machine,  mark- 
ing each  with  a  circle  in  red  chalk,  so  that  none 
may  be  included  in  the  next  day's  total.  The 
record  appears  to  be  thirty-seven  holes  in  one 
day,  and  the  pilot  in  question  claims  to  be 
the  "  record  man  du  monde." 

Zeppelins  have  not  maintained  their  reputa- 
tion in  this  war.  One  sailed  over  Sir  John 
French's  headquarters  and  indicated  the  posi- 
tion to  the  enemy,  but  they  are  no  match  for 
the  swift  and  agile  aeroplanes.  A  wounded 
dispatch  carrier  saw  one  English  and  two 
French  machines  attack  a  Zeppelin  and  bring 
it  down  instantly.  A  half  hour's  fight  with 
another  is  recorded;  among  the  captured  pas- 
sengers in  this,  according  to  a  soldier's  letter, 
was  a  boy  of  nine.  Private  Drury,  Coldstream 
Guards,  saw  one  huge  German  aeroplane 
brought  to  earth,  three  of  its  officers  being 
killed  by  rifle  fire  and  one  badly  injured. 

There  is  something  strange,  mysterious,  and 
insubstantial  about  the  war  in  the  air  that  the 
soldiers  do  not  yet  feel  or  comprehend.  Often 
the  feverish  activity  of  aircraft  at  a  high  alti- 
tude is  known  only  to  a  very  few  practised 
observers.  A  gentle  purring  in  the  air  and 
the  scarcely  audible  ping-pong  of  distant  re- 
volver shots  may  represent  a  fierce  duel  in  the 


I20      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

clouds,  and  often  the  soldiers  are  unaware  of 
the  presence  of  a  hostile  airman  until  the  pro- 
jectiles aimed  at  them  burst  in  the  trenches. 
One  evening,  a  graphic  official  message  states, 
the  atmosphere  was  so  still  and  clear  that  only 
those  specially  on  the  lookout  detected  the  en- 
emy's aeroplanes,  and  when  the  bombs  burst 
"  the  puffs  of  smoke  from  the  detonating  shell 
hung  in  the  air  for  minutes  on  end  like  balls 
of  fleecy  cottonwool  before  they  slowly  ex- 
panded and  were  dissipated." 

Of  course,  the  tactics  adopted  for  dealing 
with  hostile  aircraft  are  to  attack  them  in- 
stantly with  one  or  more  British  machines,  and 
as  in  this  respect  the  British  Flying  Corps  has 
established  an  individual  ascendency,  Sir  John 
French  proudly  declares  that  "  something  in 
the  direction  of  the  mastery  of  the  air  has  al- 
ready been  gained." 


TOMMY  AND  HIS  RATIONS      121 


XIII 
TOMMY  AND  HIS  RATIONS 

A  MEDICAL  officer  at  the  front  declares 
that  the  British  Expeditionary  Force 
is,  without  doubt,  the  "  best  fed  Army 
that  has  ever  taken  the  field."  That  is  a  sweep- 
ing statement,  but  it  is  true.  It  is  confirmed 
over  and  over  again  in  the  letters  of  Tommy 
Atkins.  It  is  acknowledged  by  the  French. 
Even  the  most  sullen  German  prisoners  agree 
with  it.  There  has  been  universal  praise  for 
the  quality  and  abundance  of  the  food,  and  the 
general  arrangements  for  the  comfort  of  the 
British,  soldier. 

One  French  description  of  the  feeding  says 
that  the  English  troops  "  live  like  fighting 
cocks,"  another  marvels  at  "  the  stupendous 
pieces  of  meat,  and  bread  heavy  with  butter 
and  jam,"  a  third  speaks  of  the  "  amazing 
Tommees "  who  "  carry  everything  in  their 
pockets  and  forget  nothing  at  all."  And  so 
on. 


122      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

But  the  most  remarkable  tribute  of  all  to 
the  perfect  working  of  the  transport  and  supply- 
service  is  that  given  by  the  British  officers  and 
men  themselves.  Captain  Guy  Edwards,  Cold- 
stream Guards,  says :  "  They  have  fed  our 
troops  wonderfully  regularly  and  well  up  to 
the  present;  we  have  had  no  sickness  at  all, 
and  every  one  is  in  splendid  spirits."  In  an- 
other letter  an  officer  refers  to  the  generosity 
of  the  rations.  "  In  addition  to  meat  and 
bread  (or  biscuit)/'  he  says,  "we  get  ^Ib. 
jam,  /41b.  bacon,  30Z.  cheese,  tea,  etc.,  while 
the  horses  have  had  a  good  supply  of  oats  and 
hay."  During  the  whole  of  the  long  retreat 
from  Mons,  says  an  officer  of  the  Berkshires, 
"  there  was  only  one  day  when  we  missed  our 
jam  rations!  " 

And  it  is  the  same  with  the  men.  Here  are 
some  brief  extracts  from  their  letters  : 

Private  ,  20th  Field  Ambulance: 

*'  Our  food  supply  is  magnificent.  We 
have  everything  we  want  and  food  to 
spare.  Bacon  and  tomatoes  is  a  common 
breakfast  for  us." 

Driver  Finch:  "I  am  in  the  best  of 
health,  with  the  feeding  and  the  open-air 
life.  The  stars  have  been  our  covering 
for  the  last  few  weeks." 

Sergeant,    Infantry    Regiment:     "The 


TOMMY  AND  HIS  RATIONS      123 

arrangements  are  very  good  —  no  worry 
or  hitch  anywhere ;  it  is  all  wonderful." 

Cavalryman :  "  We  live  splendidly,  be- 
ing even  able  to  supplement  our  generous 
rations  with  eggs,  milk  and  vegetables  as 
we  go  through  the  villages." 

Gunner :  "  Having  the  time  of  my 
life." 
Of  course,  the  exigencies  of  war  may  not  al- 
ways permit  of  the  perfect  working  of  the 
supply  machine.  Already  there  have  been 
many  hardships  to  be  endured.  Incessant 
fighting  does  not  give  the  men  time  for  proper 
meals,  sleep  is  either  cut  out  altogether  or  re- 
duced to  an  occasional  couple  of  hours,  heavy 
rains  bring  wet  clothing  and  wetter  resting 
places,  boots  wear  out  with  prolonged  march- 
ing, and  men  have  to  go  for  days  and  even 
weeks  unwashed,  unshaven,  and  without  even 
a  chance  of  getting  out  of  their  clothes  for  a 
single  hour. 

The  officers  suffer  just  as  much  as  the  men. 
After  a  fortnight  or  three  wrecks  at  the  front 
one  cavalry  officer  wrote  that  he  "  had  not 
taken  his  clothes  off  since  he  left  the  Curragh." 
"  For  five  days,"  another  says,  "  I  never  took 
off  my  boots,  even  to  sleep,  and  for  two  days 
I  did  not  even  wash  my  hands  or  face.  For 
three  days  and  nights  I  got  just  four  hours' 


124      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

sleep.  The  want  of  sleep  was  the  one  thing 
we  felt."  Sleep,  indeed,  is  just  the  last  thing 
the  officers  get.  Brigadier-General  Sir  Philip 
Chetwode  outlines  his  daily  program  as  "  work 
from  4  a.m.  to  ii  p.m.,  then  writing  and  prep- 
arations until  4  a.m.  again."  To  make  matters 
worse  just  at  the  start  of  the  famous  cavalry- 
charge  which  brought  Sir  Philip  such  distinc- 
tion, his  pack-horse  bolted  into  the  German 
lines  carrying  all  his  luggage,  and  leaving  him 
nothing  but  a  toothbrush ! 

One  of  the  Dorsets'  officers  reports  that 
"  owing  to  the  continuous  fighting  the  *  even- 
ing meal '  has  become  conspicuous  by  its  ab- 
sence," but  in  spite  of  having  carried  a  lib. 
tin  of  compressed  beef  and  a  few  biscuits  about 
with  them  for  several  days  they  are  all  "  most 
beastly  fit  on  it."  "  No  one  seems  any  the 
worse,  and  I  feel  all  the  fitter,"  writes  an  of- 
ficer of  a  Highland  Regiment,  "  after  long 
marches  in  the  rain  going  to  bed  as  wet  as  a 
Scotch  mist." 

The  men  are  just  as  cheerful  as  their  officers. 
"  You  can't  expect  a  blooming  Ritz  Hotel  in 
the  firing  line,"  is  how  a  jocular  Cockney  puts 
it.  An  artilleryman  says  they  would  fare 
sumptuously  if  it  weren't  for  the  German  shells 
at  meal  times :  "  one  shell,  for  instance,  shat- 
tered our  old  porridge  pot  before  we'd  had  a 


TOMMY  AND  HIS  RATIONS      125 

spoonful  out  of  it!"  Lieutenant  Jardine,  a 
son  of  Sir  John  Jardine,  M.P.,  relates  this  same 
incident.  Gunner  Prince,  R.F.A.,  has  a  little 
joke  about  the  sleeping  quarters  :  "  Just  going 
to  bed.  Did  I  say  bed?  I  mean  under  the 
gun  with  an  overcoat  for  a  blanket."  There 
is  no  sort  of  grumbling  at  all.  As  Lieutenant 
Stringer,  of  the  5th  Lancers,  expresses  it,  the 
A.S.C.  "  manage  things  very  well,  and  our 
motto  is  '  always  merry  and  bright.'  " 

Occasionally,  when  there  is  a  lull  in  the  oper- 
ations, the  men  dine  gloriously.  Stories  are 
told  of  gargantuan  feeds  —  of  majestic  stews 
that  can  be  scented  even  in  the  German  lines. 
Occasionally,  too,  there  is  the  capture  of  a 
banquet  prepared  for  the  enemy's  officers  as 
the  following  message  from  the  Standard  illus- 
trates :  "  A  small  party  of  our  cavalry  were 
out  on  reconnaissance  work,  scouring  woods 
and  searching  the  countryside.  Just  about 
dusk  a  hail  of  bullets  came  upon  our  party 
from  a  small  spinney  of  fir  trees  on  the  side 
of  a  hill.  We  instantly  wheeled  off  as  if  we 
were  retreating,  but,  in  fact,  we  merely  pre- 
tended to  retire  and  galloped  round  across 
plowed  land  to  the  other  side  of  the  spinney, 
fired  on  the  men,  and  they  mounted  their 
horses  and  flew  like  lightning  out  of  their 
*  supper  room.'     They  left  a  finely  cooked  re- 


126      TOMMY  ATKINS  AT  WAR 

past  of  beef-steaks,  onions  and  fried  potatoes 
all  ready  and  done  to  a  turn,  with  about  fifty 
bottles  of  Pilsner  lager  beer,  which  was  an  ac- 
ceptable relish  to  our  meal.  Ten  of  our  men 
gave  chase  and  returned  for  an  excellent  feed." 

Another  amusing  capture  is  that  of  an  enter- 
prising Tommy  who  possessed  himself  of  a 
German  officer's  bearskin,  a  cap,  helmet,  and 
Jaeger  sleeping  bag.  He  is  now  regarded  as 
the  ''  toff  of  the  regiment."  The  luxury  of  a 
bath  was  indulged  in  by  a  company  of  Berk- 
shires  at  one  encampment.  Forty  wine  barrels 
nearly  full  of  water  were  discovered  here,  and 
the  thirsty  men  were  about  to  drink  it  when 
their  officer  stopped  them.  "  Well,"  said  one, 
"  if  it's  not  good  enough  to  drink  it'll  do  to 
wash  in,"  and  with  one  accord  they  stripped 
and  jumped  into  the  barrels!  Nothing  has 
been  more  notable  than  Tommy's  desire  for 
cleanliness  and  tidiness.  It  is  something  fine 
and  healthy  about  the  British  soldier.  One 
wounded  man,  driven  up  to  a  hospital,  limped 
with  difficulty  to  a  barber's  shop  for  a  shave 
before  he  would  enter  the  building.  "  I 
couldn't  face  the  doctors  and  nurses  looking 
like  I  was,"  he  told  the  ambulance  attendant. 

Of  all  the  soldiers'  wants  the  most  impera- 
tive appears  to  be  the  harmless  necessary  ciga- 
rette.    All  their  letters  clamor  for  tobacco  in 


TOMMY  AND  HIS  RATIONS     127 

that  form.  "  We  can't  get  a  decent  smoke 
here,"  says  one  writer.  An  army  airman 
"  simply  craves  for  cigarettes  and  matches." 
From  a  cavalryman  comes  the  appeal  that  a  few 
boxes  of  cigarettes  and  some  thick  chocolate 
w^ould  be  luxuries.  "  Just  fancy,"  to  quote 
from  another  letter,  "  one  cigarette  among  ten 
of  us  —  hardly  one  puff  a-piece." 

In  the  French  hospitals  the  wounded  men 
are  being  treated  with  the  greatest  kindness, 
and  during  convalescence  are  being  loaded  with 
luxuries.  "  Spoilt  darlings,"  one  Scottish 
nurse  in  Paris  says  about  them,  "  but  who  could 
help  spoiling  them  ?  "  They  are  so  happy  and 
cheerful,  so  grateful  for  every  little  service,  so 
eager  to  return  to  the  firing  line  in  order  to 
"  get  the  war  over  and  done  with."  "  We've 
promised  to  be  home  by  Christmas,"  they  say, 
"  and  that  turkey  and  plum-pudding  will  be 
spoilt  if  we  don't  turn  up." 

Home  by  Christmas!  That  is  Tommy  At- 
kins' idea  of  a  "  Non-stop  run  to  Berlin  " — 
the  facetious  notice  he  printed  in  chalk  on 
the  troop  trains  at  Boulogne  as,  singing  "  It's  a 
long  way  to  Tipperary,"  he  rolled  away  to  the 
greatest  battles  that  have  ever  seared  the  face 
of  Europe. 

VAIL-BALLOU    CO.,    BINGHAMTON    AND    NEW    YORK 


y 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 

STAMPED  BELOW 

^.^V   8   19^^ 

FEB  19  1918 

ircrL03l974  6] 

n 

'CHURNED  TO 

»~ 

^^^  1  0 1374 

^-         A  He 

- 

H0V»»2flSS 

1 

JAN  0  2  2006 

30?n-l,'15 

VB  ?(058 


\ 


S98971 


'C 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAIvIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


